0P2S^^H3a^7P^&B  B  eeeeasee^^^s^(H3 


^     A 


Copyright,  igo^ 
By  L.  C.  Page  &  Company 

(incorporated) 
All  rights  reserved 


Published  October,  1905 


Second  Impression,  July,  1908 


COLONIAL    PRESS 

Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  C.  H.  Simonds  &*  Co. 

Boston,   U.S.A. 


To  My  Sponsors  in  California 

y,  O'B.  Gunny  of  San  Francisco, 

and 
W,  Irving  Way,  of  Los    Angeles 

Will  you  not  accept  this  volume,  my  good 
friends,  in  ever  grateful  remembrance  of 
our  happy  days  under  your  Californian  sky? 

I  recall  now,  with  the  continent  between 
us,  how  gladly  I  met  you  on  that  morning  of 
my  arrival,  as  I  strayed  through  the  hall  of 
the  St.  Francis,  feeling  like  a  mouse  in  a 
new  loft,  and  how  quickly  I  was  made  to  feel 
at  home.  Of  all  the  great-hearted  hospital- 
ity of  the  Coast  which  had  me  in  its  generous 
keeping  at  San  Francisco,  at  San  Jose,  at 
Monterey  and  Santa  Barbara,  at  Pasadena 
and  Los  Angeles  and  Santa  Monica,  I  can 

vii 


never  adequately  speak.  If  this  were  a  mag- 
num opus,  and  there  were  enough  of  it  to 
divide,  I  should  have  to  put  a  score  of  names 
on  my  dedicatory  page  in  order  to  indicate 
anything  like  my  full  indebtedness.  As  it 
is,  perhaps  those  who  do  not  find  themselves 
spoken  of  by  name,  will  be  indulgent  enough 
to  receive  this  more  tacit  acknowledgment 
of  their  kindly  favour  and  friendship,  on  the 
trail  and  in  the  town. 

You  were  always,  if  I  may  say  it,  so  con- 
stant and  painstaking  in  all  the  finest  offices 
of  comradeship,  so  ready  and  solicitous,  that 
I  verily  believe  if  I  should  find  myself  sud- 
denly at  the  Great  Portal,  and  my  references 
required,  I  should  instinctively  answer,  "  I 
am  a  friend  of  Mr.  Gunn's "  —  or  Mr. 
Way's,  whichever  name  happened  to  slip 
from  my  tongue  at  that  embarrassing  mo- 
ment. If  I  were  so  unfortunate  as  to  have 
outlived  either  of  you,  and  to  come  after  you 
to  the  shining  Doubtful  Entrance,  I  should 
have  no  anxiety  at  all  about  my  reception; 

viii 


2ro  Ms  Stionfiiotfis 

for  I  would  know  that  you  had  already  se- 
cured me  not  only  an  admission,  but  prob- 
ably an  introduction  to  the  Management,  and 
an  invitation  to  supper  with  a  few  of  the 
choice  Stars. 

The  book  to  be  dedicated  to  you  ought 
really  to  deal  with  the  Art  of  Friendship; 
but  since  I  am  not  likely  ever  to  write  such 
a  work,  let  me  have  the  genuine  pleasure 
of  offering  you  the  first  that  comes  to  hand 
since  we  parted.  Indeed,  if  ever  the  Art 
of  Friendship  should  be  written,  —  some 
golden  book  on  that  high  theme  worthy  to 
stand  beside  Cicero  and  Emerson,  —  it 
would  be  a  stalk  without  pith  for  me,  unless 
its  pages  were  redolent  of  your  names  and 
some  memorable  tribute  to  your  fine  instinct 
in  the  art. 

Now  that  I  have  finished  the  writing  and 
am  beginning  the  final  revision  as  it  goes  to 
press,  I  have,  as  one  always  must  have  in 
such  cases,  quarter-hours,  half-hours,  whole 
hours  and  days  of  misgiving   (or  illumina- 

ix 


tion),  when  I  sit  aghast  at  the  meagre  result, 
in  view  of  all  that  one  knows  might  have 
been  done.  If  I  am  to  go  through  the  ordeal 
of  proof-reading  with  my  sanity  intact,  and 
not  qualify  for  the  funny-house  through  fits 
of  melancholy,  I  shall  have  to  keep  your 
kindly  faith  constantly  in  mind.  I  shall  have 
to  think  to  myself  that  while  you  are  deli- 
cate and  exacting  critics,  you  are  also  the 
most  indulgent  of  friends,  and  will  be  sure 
to  find  some  value  in  the  pages,  even  if  you 
have  to  look  for  it  between  the  lines.  I  shall 
be  more  than  conscious  of  all  the  short- 
comings which  must  be  evident  in  such  a 
collection  of  essays  on  poetry  as  this,  when 
compared  with  other  books  on  the  same  sub- 
ject, by  men  whose  names  I  hesitate  even  to 
recall.  But  you,  I  know,  will  make  no  such 
comparison.  Your  generosity  will  overcome 
your  scholarship,  and,  with  all  your  knowl- 
edge of  good  books,  and  your  love  of  the 
best  in  letters,  you  will  still  be  unable  to  find 
fault  when  you  read  herein.     I  can  see  you 


turn  from  page  to  page  and  smile  with  only 
the  kindliest  appreciation;  or  when  some 
sentence  or  paragraph  is  farther  from  the 
truth  than  the  rest,  I  can  hear  you  offer  your 
suggestions  in  the  gentlest  words. 

You  may  not  be  critics  of  the  sort  that  is 
best  for  one,  very  likely,  but  you  are  of  the 
sort  that  one  likes  best.  And  if  I  could  al- 
ways feel  as  I  shall  feel  while  revising  this 
undeniable  offspring,  I  should  never  need 
any  severer  criticism  than  yours,  for  I  should 
never  again  attempt  to  write. 

I  should  never  again  be  venturing  forth 
from  the  safe  old  beaches  of  silence  upon  the 
splendid  perilous  alluring  sea  of  English 
prose,  where  even  to-day  I  can  behold  so 
many  hardy  young  captains  sailing  without 
disaster  their  fairy  shallops  in  the  sun.  They 
have  all  voyaged  successfully  to  the  Fortu- 
nate Islands,  and  are  bringing  their  untold 
treasures  safely  into  port,  while  we  stand 
offering  our  timorous  applause.  Yet  such 
is  the  infatuation  of  mortals,  I  dare  say  I 

xi 


shall  be  launching  a  new  skiff  through  the 
surf  of  criticism  every  year  while  life  lasts, 
only  to  have  it  dashed  in  pieces  about  my 
feet,  or  to  see  it  dance  a  few  yards  from  land 
to  sink  beneath  the  waves.  For,  like  the 
dauntless  discoverers  of  old,  I  shall  always  be 
cheered  by  the  unconquerable  hope  that  one 
day  perhaps  I  may  construct  a  craft,  all  my 
own,  yet  not  unseaworthy  nor  unshapely, 
which  shall  be  fit  to  ride  the  breakers  trium- 
phantly, and  skim  the  deep  blue  waters  in  a 
breeze  of  popularity  at  last. 

However,  the  book  is  done  now  with  all 
its  blemishes,  and  must  stand  for  awhile,  — 
unless,  indeed,  as  I  give  it  this  final  reading, 
I  could  drop  it  sheet  by  sheet  into  the  canon 
(as  you  would  call  our  Kaaterskill  Clove), 
there  to  be  blown  away  with  vanishing 
mists.  That  is  but  a  mad  hope  I  shall  have 
to  relinquish.  Let  me  quiet  my  agitation  with 
the  thought  that,  while  I  shall  have  no  reader 
more  difficult  than  myself,  I  shall  have  two, 
at  least,  more  certain  to  be  pleased. 

xii 


2ro  Ms  Sp^nuovu 

Take  the  book,  then,  if  you  will,  and  read 
it  not  with  the  keenest  glasses  in  the  world. 
If  it  fails  in  temper  or  in  grasp,  and  is 
swept  into  overstatement  by  some  heat  of 
conviction,  or  falls  into  banalities  for  lack 
of  wisdom,  read  it  only  the  more  leniently 
and  forgive  it  all  its  trespasses.  With  what- 
ever failings,  it  shall  not  be  superfluous.  I 
will  save  it  from  that  final  annihilation,  at 
least.  For  if  it  is  of  no  account  as  criticism, 
very  well,  let  it  serve  for  something  far 
better,  —  an  excuse  for  this  dedication. 
That  will  be  a  sufl5cient  justification  for  its 
appearance,  —  that  it  should  become  a  votive 
offering  in  the  Temple  of  Friendship  and  a 
token  of  aflection  between  men. 

B.  C. 

Twilight  Park,   September y  igos» 


xin 


w^ 


w 


Contents 


^ 

PAGB 

The  Poetry  of  Life i 

The  Purpose  of  Poetry 

.        15 

How  to  Judge  Poetry 

.        52 

The  Poet  in  the  Commonwealth 

.       63 

The  Poet  in  Modern  Life  . 

.       78 

The  Defence  of  Poetry 

.      105 

Distaste  for  Poetry     . 

III 

Longfellow 

127 

Emerson           .... 

151 

Mr.  Riley's  Poetry  . 

159 

Mr.  Swinburne's  Poetry    . 

^77 

The  Rewards  of  Poetry 

191 

Cheerful  Pessimism    . 

217 

Masters  of  the  World 

224 

The  Poetry  of  To-morrow 

237 

The  Permanence  of  Poetry 

247 

Cije  lloetrg  of  Cife 


"  The  poetry  of  life,"  says  the  book  of  St 
Kavin,  "  is  the  poetry  of  beauty,  sincerity, 
and  elation."  And  when  you  think  of  it, 
it  seems  reasonable  enough  that  this  should 
be  so,  since  these  are  the  archangelic  trio  to 
whose  keeping  the  very  sources  of  life  are 
confided.  They  are  the  dispensers  of  happi- 
ness, the  bringers  of  wisdom,  the  guardians 
of  mystery. 
/  That  the  poetry  of  life  should  of  necessity 
be  the  poetry  of  beauty,  first  of  all,  seems 
nearly  self-evident.  The  beauty  of  the  world 
so  outreaches  and  overcomes  all  its  ugliness, 
is  so  much  more  prevalent  and  vital  and  per- 
sistent. One  concludes  at  once  and  instinc- 
tively that  life  concerns  itself  with  beauty 

I 


h 


I 


^^t  mttv9  of  mtt 

almost,  at  first  glance,  to  the  exclusion  of 
everything  else.  What  more  natural,  there- 
fore, since  life  cares  so  much  for  beauty, 
than  that  art,  life's  replica,  should  care 
greatly  for  it  also? 

As  for  its  sincerity,  the  poetry  of  life 
need  not  always  be  solemn,  any  more  than 
life  itself  need  always  be  sober.  It  may  be 
gay,  witty,  humourous,  satirical,  disbeliev- 
ing, farcical,  even  broad  and  reckless,  since 
life  is  all  these,  but  it  must  never  be  insin- 
cere. Insincerity,  which  is  not  always  one 
of  the  greatest  sins  in  the  moral  universe, 
becomes  in  the  world  of  art  an  ofifence  of 
the  first  magnitude.  Insincerity  in  life  may 
be  mean  and  despicable,  and  indicate  a  petty 
nature;  but  in  art  insincerity  is  death.  A 
strong  man  may  lie  upon  occasion,  and  make 
restitution  and  be  forgiven,  but  for  the  artist 
who  lies  there  is  hardly  any  reparation  pos- 
sible, and  his  forgiveness  is  much  more  diffi- 
cult. Art,  being  the  embodiment  of  the 
artist's    ideal,    is    truly    the    corporeal    sub- 

2 


Zftt  ^ottvs  of  Hift 

stance  of  his  spiritual  self;  and  that  there 
should  be  any  falsehood  in  it,  any  deliberate 
failure  to  represent  him  faithfully,  is  as 
monstrous  and  unnatural  as  it  would  be  for 
a  man  to  disavow  his  own  flesh  and  bones. 
Here  we  are  every  one  of  us  going  through 
life  committed  and  attached  to  our  bodies; 
for  all  that  we  do  we  are  held  responsible; 
if  we  misbehave,  the  world  will  take  it  out 
of  our  hide.  But  here  is  our  friend  the 
artist  committing  his  spiritual  energy  to  his 
art,  to  an  embodiment  outside  himself,  and 
escaping  down  a  by-path  from  all  the  conse- 
quences. What  shall  be  said  of  him?  The 
insincere  artist  is  as  much  beyond  the  pale 
of  human  sympathy  as  the  murderer.  Mor- 
all3rhc^  is  a  felon. 

There  is  no  excuse  for  him,  either.  There 
was  no  call  for  him  to  make  a  liar  of  him- 
self, other  than  the  most  sordid  of  reasons,  — 
the  little  gain,  the  jingling  reward  of  gold. 
For  no  man  would  ever  be  insincere  in  his 
art,  except  for  pay,  except  to  cater  to  some 


other  taste  than  his  own,  and  to  win  approval 
and  favour  by  his  sycophancy.  If  he  were 
assured  of  his  competency  in  the  world,  and 
placed  beyond  the  reach  of  necessitous  want, 
how  would  it  ever  occur  to  him  to  create  an 
insincere  art?  Art  is  so  simple  and  spontane- 
ous, so  dependent  on  the  disingenuous  emo- 
tion, that  it  can  never  be  insincere,  unless 
violence  is  done  to  all  law  of  nature  and  of 
^  spirit.  Since  art  arises  from  the  sacramental 
blending  of  the  inward  spirit  with  the  out- 
ward form,  any  touch  of  insincerity  in  it 
assumes  the  nature  of  a  horrible  crime,  a 
pitiable  revolt  against  the  order  and  eternity 
of  the  universe.  That  the  conditions  of 
modern  commercialism  are  to  blame  for  this 
unhappy  possibility,  may  be  true;  but  that 
only  makes  it  the  more  sad,  and  gives  the 
final  selfish  touch  that  robs  it  of  all  sym- 
pathy. 

The  environs  of  the  city  of  art  are  always 
full  of  charlatans.  The  clever  artisan  or  in- 
ventor who  often  does  not  even  pretend  to 

4 


make  the  real  article  you  seek,  but  offers  you 
something  ^^  just  as  good  and  much  cheaper," 
is  never  far  from  the  honest  market-place. 
Often  he  has  the  very  appearance  and  pose 
of  the  true  artist,  and  his  resentment  of  an 
imputation  of  his  honesty  would  deceive 
many.  He  is  a  cheat,  for  all  that,  and  in 
his  heart  he  knows  it. 

For  the  books  that  are  written,  the  plays 
that  are  produced,  the  pictures  that  are 
painted  by  fatuous,  misdirected,  incompetent, 
yet  sincere  energy,  one  can  have  nothing  but 
compassionate  respect.  The  sight  of  some 
.poor  spirit,  in  guileless  devoted  zeal,  spend- 
ing years  and  health  and  hope  and  resources 
in  the  pursuit  of  some  quite  hopeless  ambi- 
tion in  art,  is  a  thing  to  make  one  weep. 
So  pure,  so  kindly,  so  praiseworthy  in  its 
intentions,  and  yet  so  futile!  For  such  as 
these  there  must  be  a  special  reward  here- 
after. They  do  not  cumber  the  ground,  they 
keep  it  sweet;    often  they  shame  even  the 


great  ones  by  their  singleness  of  purpose  and 
sincerity  of  soul. 

It  is  not  necessary,  as  I  say,  for  art  to 
be  solemn  and  wholly  serious-minded  in 
order  to  be  sincere.  Comedy  is  quite  sincere. 
She  is  one  of  the  most  honest  of  the  muses. 
Yet  it  is  easy  to  usurp  her  name  and  play  the 
fool  for  pennies,  with  never  a  ray  of  appre- 
ciation of  her  true  character.  I  know  a 
comic  poet  (you  may  not  believe  me,  but  I 
believe  myself),  a  young  man  who  has 
recently  arisen,  who  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
true  artist  and  no  pretender.  Whenever  I 
see  his  name  I  read  his  jingles  with  delight. 
Such  amazing  productivity  with  such  un- 
failing irresistible  mirth  I  have  seldom  heard 
of  elsewhere.  If  he  is  not  another  Hood, 
I  am  mistaken.  He  is,  so  far  at  least,  a 
proof  of  the  fact  that  one  can  live  in  the 
world  yet  not  be  destroyed  by  the  world; 
for  though  so  eminently  popular,  he  is 
still  genuine  in  his  wit.  I  always  think  of 
his  work  as  an  example  of  art  which  may 

6 


©He  J&ottvs  of  Hlft 

be  perfectly  frivolous  and  perfectly  sincere 
at  the  same  time.  And  every  day,  side  by 
side  with  his,  I  see  other  work  masking  as 
comedy,  which  is  nothing  but  false,  unin- 
spired, and  wooden,  the  pitiable  product  of 
cleverness  without  spirit,  the  worthless  con- 
trivance of  journeymen.  There  seem  to  be 
plenty  of  fabricators  of  this  latter  sort  of 
rhyme.  They  are,  I  suppose,  —  they  and 
their  works,  —  the  inevitable  but  odious  ac- 
companiments of  our  times.  They  write  to  ^ 
please  their  editors,  and  their  reward  is  sure, 
but  the  comic  muse  disowns  them  for  all 
that. 

Sincerity,  then,  is  not  in  the  least  averse  ^ 
to  fun,  it  only  requires  that  the  fun  shall  be 
genuine  and  come  from  the  heart,  as  it  re- 
quires that  every  note  of  whatever  sort  shall 
be  genuine  and  spring  from  the  real  person- 
ality of  the  writer. 

More  than  this,  I  find  in  the  phrase,  "  the  ^' 
poetry  of  sincerity,"  a  suggestion  as  to  the 
function  of  poetry  in  relation  to  science,  to 

7 


^ftt  ^ottts  of  Hift 

truth,  for  our  thirst  for  knowing  what  is  to 
be  known.  And  the  aspiration,  Da  mihi, 
Domine,  scire  quod  sciendum  est,  seems 
preeminently  the  daily  prayer  for  a  poet 
to  make,  the  voice  of  his  longing  to  be 
brought  into  communication  with  things  as 
they  are.  It  points  to  the  necessity  poetry  is 
always  under  of  supplying  food  for  our 
j/  curiosity,  answers  for  our  deepest  questions, 
;  and  a  reasonable  explanation  of  life.  It 
emphasizes  the  fact  which  I  have  reiterated 
so  often,  that  it  is  never  enough  for  poetry 
to  be  stirring  and  entrancing,  unless  it  is 
illuminating  as  well.  The  poetry  of  sin- 
cerity is  the  poetry  of  truth. 
/-  In  the  matter  of  elation  as  a  requirement 

in  the  poetry  of  life,  perhaps  a  little  more 
explanation  is  needed.  As  I  understand  it, 
"  the  poetry  of  life  is  the  poetry  of  beauty, 
sincerity,  and  elation,"  because  the  poetry 
of  ugliness,  falsehood,  and  depression  would 
be  a  poetry  of  death.  And  that  is  something 
the  world  does  not  want.    It  has  enough  of 

S 


Siie  JPoettrj?  of  ILift 

death  in  reality,  without  any  artificial  copy 
or  reminder  of  it.  When  poetry,  poetry  that 
is  highly  esteemed  and  widely  valued,  refers 
to  death,  it  seeks  and  celebrates  some  trace 
of  survival,  some  hint  of  immortality.  It 
strives  to  minimize  the  depressing  aspect 
of  death,  and  bring  gladness  out  of  sorrow. 
There  has  recently  been  issued  a  selection 
from  Whitman's  poetry,  entitled  "  The  Book 
of  Heavenly  Death."  It  is  anything  but 
depressing,  of  course.  It  has  its  place  as- 
sured with  the  poetry  of  elation.  And  so 
of  all  great  sincere  poetry  which  has  proved 
itself  of  value  in  men's  eyes,  it  retains  its 
vogue  and  influence  because  of  its  enhearten- 
ing  power,  its  power  to  strengthen  our  hearts 
in  courage,  faith,  love,  gladness,  serenity, 
wisdom,  resignation,  or  peace.  Poetry  which 
emphasizes  depression,  discouragement,  and 
defeat,  and  harps  upon  the  horrors  or  ills 
or  dark  enigmas  of  life,  is  of  no  earthly 
use  whatever  to  men  whose  whole  business 


in  life  is  to  avoid  and  mitigate  and  overcome 
those  sorry  evils. 

I  have  heard  a  writer  who  insisted,  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  perhaps,  on  the 
necessity  of  the  joyous  note  in  art,  taken 
to  task  as  a  pagan,  and  accused  of  being 
indifferent  to  the  sorrows  of  man,  or  even 
ignorant  of  them.  I  am  sure  that  by  the 
/'word  ^'  joy ''  he  could  not  have  meant  any 
mere  momentary  and  shallow  gladness, 
whether  of  the  senses  or  the  spirit.  To  re- 
joice, is  the  injunction  repeated  again  and 
again  by  an  apostle  of  Christianity,  the 
religion  of  the  sorrowful.  The  man  who 
has  not  tasted  sorrow,  —  natural,  inevitable, 
purifying  sorrow,  —  does  not  know  what 
joy  means  in  this  larger  sense.  There  is  a 
higher  joy  which  includes  all  sorrow,  just 
as  there  is  a  higher  good  which  forgives  all 
evil,  though  it  may  scarcely  be  within  the 
reach  of  mortals.  And  one  who  should 
advocate  the  cultivation  of  a  small,  thought- 
less, selfish  joy,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  ex- 

lO 


C8^  lloettj?  of  ILift 

perience  of  sorrow  and  all  sympathy  with 
pain,  would  be  foolish  indeed.  For  such 
joy  is  less  than  the  joy  of  children,  being 
heartless  and  insecure. 

If  one  asks  for  the  note  of  joy  in  art,  and 
demands  that  the  quality  of  gladness  be 
emphasized,  this  does  not  imply  that  sorrow 
is  to  be  ignored.  A  joy  without  sympathy 
would  be  unnatural,  if,  indeed,  it  were 
possible  in  such  a  life  as  this.  And  if  we 
are  urged  to  rejoice  and  be  exceeding  glad, 
let  us  understand  that  it  is  to  be  in  spite  of 
sorrow  and  evil,  even  somehow  by  their 
means,  and  not  regardless  of  their  presence 
in  life. 
11  That  is  always  good  in  poetry,  as  in  life, 
'which  stimulates  the  spirit  and  renews  its 
zest,  its  strength,  its  fortitude.  Sorrow  and 
the  representation  of  sorrow  may  do  this  at 
times  as  well  as  happiness.  There  is  an 
influence  in  tragedy,  a  nobleness  of  grief, 
which  is  tonic  to  the  soul,  and  leaves  us 
sobered  but  not  dejected.     It  is  the  squalid 

II 


i^ 


and  unrelieved  depression  in  them,  which 
makes  so  many  modern  tragedies  hopeless 
failures.  They  emphasize  the  ugly  evil,  yet 
afford  the  soul  no  escape,  offer  it  no  com- 
pensation, such  as  there  always  is  in  life. 
No  wonder  the  public  will  have  none  of 
them.  But  in  classic  tragedy  there  is  always 
some  exit  for  the  distraught,  indomitable 
spirit,  some  incentive  to  endurance,  some 
consciousness  of  greatness  or  nobility.  We 
weep  at  the  sorrows  of  Lear,  yet  our  pride 
is  touched  by  the  grandeur  of  that  old  kingly 
man,  and  our  just  indignation  at  the  im- 
pious daughters  relieves  the  tension  of  suf- 
fering. Both  sentiments  are  kindling  to  the 
spirit,  and  we  come  away  from  the  play 
bettered,  if  not  cheered.  It  belongs  to  the 
poetry  of  elation,  tragedy  though  it  is. 
y^  Such  poetry  is  in  accord  with  the  trend 
of  life,  —  life  which  is  full  of  evil  and 
horror  and  confusion  and  mischance,  and 
which  yet  goes  on  its  long,  slow,  persistent 
course,   ever   putting   aside   these   monstrous 

12 


JS^fit  ^ottvs  of  ILiU 

drawbacks,  and  gathering  to  itself  all  love-  \ 
liness  and  truth  and  charity.  Anything  ' 
which  can  help  the  spirit  of  man  on  his 
difficult  trail,  that  will  he  gladly  make  use 
of,  that  only  to  him  is  good.  In  poetry,  in 
the  arts,  whatever  gives  us  a  touch  of  elation, 
of  glad  encouragement,  of  hope,  of  aspira- 
tion, of  solace,  that  do  we  eagerly  seize  and 
hold.  It  seems  to  us  good,  as  well  as  fair  and 
true.  If  you  say  that  the  poetry  of  sincerity 
is  the  poetry  of  truth,  you  may  add,  the 
poetry  of  elation  is  the  poetry  of  goodness. 

To  incorporate  truth,  to  arrest  and  make 
evident  those  facts  about  nature  which  de- 
light and  satisfy  the  mind;  to  incorporate 
at  the  same  time  the  feelings  which  delight 
and  satisfy  the  heart;  and  to  give  this  mani- 
festation a  guise  which  shall  allure  and 
delight  and  satisfy  the  senses;  this  is  the 
great  and  only  business  of  all  art,  just  as 
it  appears  to  be  the  supreme  concern  of  all 
life. 

Life  which   is   constantly   realizing   itself 
13 


in  nature,  does  so  in  these  three  ways,  and 
offers  us  these  three  phases  of  itself.  An 
art  which  attempts  to  realize  itself,  while 
still  neglecting  to  make  itself  felt  in  any  one 
of  these  three  directions,  must,  therefore,  be 
faulty  just  to  that  extent.  And  since  art  is 
a  mimic  creation,  made  in  imitation  of  life, 
we  see  how  this  saying  was  come  by,  "  The 
poetry  of  life  is  the  poetry  of  beauty,  sin- 
cerity, and  elation." 


14 


Cije  ^mpou  of  ©oetrg 


Before  considering  any  of  the  aims  and 
purposes  of  poetry,  or  any  of  its  essential 
characteristics,  we  had  better  first  consider 
it  in  its  place  as  one  of  the  fine  arts.  If  we 
then  ask  ourselves  what  the  fine  arts  are  to 
do  for  us,  what  place  they  are  to  hold  in  a 
civilized  nation,  we  shall  perhaps  be  able  to 
look  at  poetry  in  a  broader  way  than  we 
otherwise  could;  we  shall  be  able  to  think 
of  it  not  merely  as  a  pleasant  and  amusing 
diversion,  but  as  one  of  the  potent  factors 
of  history. 

If  we  try  to  find  a  place  for  the  fine  arts 
among  our  various  human  activities,  we 
might  begin  by  making  a  rough  classifica- 
tion of  our  subject.    The  most  primitive  and 

15 


necessary  occupations  we  engage  in,  such  as 
fishing  and  agriculture,  trading,  navigating, 
and  hunting,  we  call  industries.  These  mark 
the  earliest  stage  of  man's  career  in  civiliza- 
tion. Then  he  comes  to  other  occupations, 
requiring  more  skill  and  ingenuity;  he 
weaves  fabrics,  he  makes  himself  houses,  he 
fashions  all  sorts  of  implements  for  the  house- 
hold and  the  chase.  He  becomes  a  builder, 
a  potter,  a  metal-worker,  an  inventor.  He 
has  added  thought  to  work  and  made  the 
work  easier.  And  these  new  occupations 
which  he  has  discovered  for  himself  differ 
from  his  earlier  ones  chiefly  in  this,  that  they 
result  in  numerous  objects  of  more  or  less 
permanence,  cunningly  contrived  and  aptly 
fitted  to  use.  They  are  objects  of  useful 
or  industrial  art. 

Now  we  must  note  two  things  about  this 
itep  forward  which  man  has  taken  toward 
civilization ;  in  the  first  place  he  had  to  have 
some  leisure  to  do  these  things,  and  in  the 
second  place  the  objects  he  has  made  reveal 
\  i6 


©He  ^nvpo^t  of  ^ottvs 

his  ingenuity  and  forethought.  They  are 
records  of  his  life;  and  it  will  happen  that 
as  his  leisure  increases,  his  implements  will 
become  more  and  more  elaborate  and  ornate.. 
Every  workman  will  have  his  own  way  of 
fashioning  them,  using  his  own  device  and 
designs,  so  that  they  will  become  something 
more  than  rude  relics  of  one  historic  age 
or  another;  they  will  tell  us  something  of 
the  artificer  himself;  they  will  embody  some 
intentional  expression  of  human  life  and 
come  to  have  an  art  value.  In  so  far  as  they 
can  do  this,  they  contain  the  essential  quality 
of  the  fine  arts,  ^nd  _the  more  freely  the — 
workman  can  deal  with  his  craft,  the  more 
perfectly  he  can  make  it  characteristic  of 
himself,  the  finer  will  its  artistic  quality 
become. 

The  only  purpose  of  the  primitive  indus- 
tries was  a  utilitarian  one.  The  prime  object 
of  the  industrial  arts  is  also  a  utilitarian  one; 
but  they  have  a  secondary  object  as  well, 
they    aim    at   beauty,    too.      They    not   only 

17 


w 


sri^e  Poettff  of  mu 

serve  the  practical  end  for  which  they  were 
intended,  they  serve  also  as  a  means  of  ex- 
pression for  the  workman.  Now  just  as 
we  passed  from  the  industries  to  the  industrial 
arts,  by  the  addition  of  this  secondary  inter- 
est, this  human  artistic  expressional  quality, 
so  by  making  this  quality  paramount  we 
may  pass  from  the  industrial  arts  to  the  fine 
arts  themselves,  where  expression  is  all-im- 
portant, and  utility  becomes  less  prominent. 
It  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  fine  arts 
that  they  give  usY^rnems  of  expressing  our- 
.§elves  in  terms  of  intelligible  beauty. 

I  have  made  this  distinctroiTI&etween  the 
fine  and  the  industrial  arts  merely  for  the 
sake  of  clarifying  our  ideas,  and  getting  a 
notion  of  what  is  the  essence  of  all  art.  But 
really  the  difference  is  not  important,  and, 
having  served  its  turn,  may  be  forgotten. 
There  is  an  element  of  art,  of  course,  in 
everything  that  we  do;  the  manner  of  the 
doing  constitutes  the  art.  The  quality  of  art 
which  we  should  appreciate  and  respect  may 

i8 


quite  as  truly  be  present  in  a  Japanese  to- 
bacco-box as  in  a  Greek  tragedy.  The  Japa- 
nese, indeed,  offer  an  instance  of  a  people 
who  have  raised  the  handicrafts  quite  to  the 
level  of  the  fine  arts.  All  those  fascinating 
objects  of  beauty,  which  they  contrive  with 
so  much  skill,  are  often,  one  may  guess,  only 
as  many  excuses  for  the  workman  to  exhibit 
his  deftness  and  his  taste.  This  black  oak 
cabinet  inlaid  with  pearl,  or  that  lacquer 
bowl,  may,  perhaps,  be  counted  useful  ob- 
jects; but  I  fancy  that  before  all  else  they 
were  just  so  many  opportunities  for  the  ar- 
tist; and  when  he  fashioned  them  he  had 
in  mind  chiefly  the  creation  of  something 
beautiful,  and  dwelt  very  little  upon  the  use 
to  which  they  might  be  put.  He  was  bent 
on  giving  play  to  his  imagination,  and  you 
may  be  very  sure  that  he  was  glad  in  the 
work  of  his  hands,  and  wrought  all  those 
intricate  effects  with  loving  care.  Surely  the 
result  is  much  more  deserving  of  respect  than 
a  mediocre  epic  or  a  second-rate  painting. 

19 


^fft  Jloetts?  of  fLlft 

It  is  not  what  we  do  that  counts,  but  how 
A     well  we  do  it.     There  is  no  saying  one  kind 
\  /of  work  is  art,  and  another  kind  is  not  art. 
[\    Anything  that  is  well  done  is  art;    anything 
that  is  badly  done  is  rotten. 

I  do  not  wish  either  to  confine  the  word 
"  useful,"  in  its  application,  to  our  material 
needs.  Everything  we  do  ought  to  be  use- 
ful, and  so  it  is,  if  it  is  done  well.  Tables 
and  chairs  are  useful;  but  so  are  pictures 
and  cathedrals  and  lyrics  and  the  theatre. 
If  we  allow  ourselves  only  what  are  called 
the  necessities  of  life,  we  are  only  keeping 
alive  one-third  of  being;  the  other  two- 
thirds  of  our  manhood  may  be  starving  to 
death.  The  mind  and  the  soul  have  their 
necessities  as  well  as  the  body.  And  we  are 
to  seek  these  things,  not  only  for  our  future 
salvation,  but  for  our  salvation  here  and  now, 
that  our  lives  may  be  helpful  and  sound  and 
happy. 

It  is  often  easy  to  see  how  a  fine  art  may 
grow  from  some  more  necessary  and  com- 

20 


2r|ie  ^nvpo^t  of  J^oHvs 

monplace  undertaking.  The  fine  art  of 
painting,  for  instance,  arose,  of  course,  from 
the  use  of  ornamental  lines  and  figures, 
drawn  on  pottery,  or  on  the  walls  of  a  skin 
tent,  where  it  served  only  to  enhance  the 
value  of  the  craftsman's  work  and  please 
his  fancy.  Gradually,  through  stages  of 
mural  decoration,  perhaps,  where  ever  in- 
creasing freedom  of  execution  was  given  the 
artist,  its  first  ornamental  purpose  was  for- 
gotten, and  it  came  to  serve  only  as  a  means 
of  expressing  the  artist's  imaginative  ideals. 
So;  too,  of  sculpture  and  architecture,  of 
dancing  and  acting.  It  is  an  easy  transition 
from  the  light-hearted,  superfluous  skip  of 
a  child  as  it  runs,  to  the  more  formal  dance- 
step,  as  the  child  keeps  time  to  music  and 
gives  vent  to  its  gaiety  of  spirit.  It  is  an 
easy  transition  from  gesture  and  sign  lan- 
guage, employed  as  a  necessary  means  of 
communication,  to  their  more  elaborate  use 
in  the  art  of  acting,  where  they  serve  merely 
to  emphasize  subtle  expression  and  to  create 

21 


ffilie  3i|oett»  of  2Lffe 

an  illusion.  Similarly,  too,  whenever  a  piece 
of  information  is  conveyed  by  word  of 
mouth,  and  the  teller  of  the  tale  elaborates 
it  with  zest  and  interest  and  grace,  making 
it  more  memorable  and  vivid  and  beautiful, 
the  fine  art  of  letters  is  born. 

Now  we  may  notice  that  the  quality  of 
art  begins  to  appear  in  all  our  occupations, 
as  the  direst  stress  of  existence  is  relieved, 
and  man's  spirit  begins  to  have  free  play. 
Art  is  an  indication  of  health  and  happy  ex- 
uberance of  life;  it  is  as  instinctive  and 
spontaneous  in  its  origin  as  child's  play.  To 
produce  it  naturally  the  artist  must  be  free, 
for  the  time  being,  at  least,  —  free  from  all 
doubt  or  hesitation  about  the  truth,  free 
from  all  material  tortures,  free  from  dejec- 
tion and  fear.  The  primitive  industries 
mark  the  first  grade  in  the  human  story,  when 
we  were  barely  escaping  from  the  necessity 
for  unremitting  hand-to-hand  physical  strug- 
gle for  life;  and  the  second  grade  in  our 
progress  is  marked  by  the  appearance  of  the 

22 


Si^e  ^nvpom  of  ^ottxs 

industrial  arts;  while  we  may  look  on  the 
fine  arts  as  an  index  of  the  highest  develop- 
ment, as  we  pass  from  savagery  and  barbar- 
ism to  civilization.  And  perhaps  we  shall 
not  go  very  far  astray,  in  our  comparative 
estimate  of  nations,  and  their  greatness  on 
the  earth,  if  we  rank  them  in  the  order  of 
their  proficiency  in  the  arts. 

Now  the  fine  arts,  having  thus  had  their 
rise  in  the  free  play  of  the  human  spirit  as 
it  went  about  its  work  in  the  world,  and 
busied  itself  with  the  concerns  of  life,  became 
a  oatural  vehicle  for  giving  expression  to  all 
men's  aspirations  and  thoughts  about  life. 
Indeed,  it  was  this  very  simple  elemental 
need  for  self-expression,  as  a  trait  in  human 
character,  which  helped  to  determine  what 
the  fine  arts  should  be.  To  communicate  our 
feelings,  to  transmit  knowledge,  to  amuse 
ourselves  by  creating  a  mimic  world  with 
imaginative  shapes  of  beauty,  these  were 
fundamental  cravings,  lurking  deep  in  the 
spirit   of   man,    and    demanding   satisfaction 

23 


\) 


arne  J^oettff  of  awe 

almost  as  imperiously  as  the  desires  of  the 
body.  If  hunger  and  cold  made  us  indus- 
trious, no  less  certainly  did  love  of  com- 
panionship and  need  for  self-expression 
mould  our  breath  into  articulate  speech. 
Since,  therefore,  the  fine  arts  are  so  truly  a 
creation  of  man,  we  may  expect  to  find  in 
them  a  trustworthy  image  of  himself.  What- 
ever is  human  must  be  there,  —  all  our 
thoughts,  all  our  emotions,  all  our  sensations, 
hopes,  and  fears.  They  will  reveal  and  em- 
body in  themselves  all  the  traits  of  our 
complex  nature.  Art  is  that  lovely  corporeal 
body  with  which  man  endows  the  spirit  of 
goodness  and  the  thought  of  truth.  For  there 
are  in  man  these  three  great  principles:    a 

^  capacity  for  finding  out  the  truth  and  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  error,  a  capacity  for 
perceiving   goodness    and    knowing   it    from 

'  evil,  and  a  capacity  for  discriminating  be- 
tween what  is  ugly  and  what  is  fair.  By 
virtue  of  the  first  of  these  powers,  man  seek- 
ing knowledge  has  become  the  philosopher 

24 


and  scientist;  by  virtue  of  the  second,  he  has 
evolved  religions  and  laws,  and  social  order 
and  advancement;  while  by  virtue  of  the 
third  he  has  become  an  artist.  Yet  we  must 
be  careful  not  to  suppose  that  either  one  of 
these  powers  ever  comes  alone  into  full  play 
or  fruition;  for  man  has  not  three  separate 
natures,  but  one  nature  with  three  different 
phases.  When,  therefore,  man  finds  expres- 
sion for  his  complete  personality  in  the  fine 
arts,  you  may  always  expect  to  find  there, 
not  only  creations  of  beauty,  but  monuments 
of.  wisdom  and  religion  as  well.  Art  can  no 
more  exist  without  having  a  moral  bearing, 
than  a  body  can  exist  without  a  soul.  Its 
influence  may  be  for  good  or  for  bad,  but 
it  is  inevitable  and  it  is  unmistakable.  In 
the  same  way  no  art  can  exist  without  an 
underlying  philosophy,  any  more  than  man 
can  exist  without  a  mind.  The  philosophy 
may  be  trivial  or  profound,  but  it  is  always 
present  and  appreciable.  "^ 

Art,  you  see,  is  enlisted  beyond  escape,  both 
25 


in  the  service  of  science  and  in  the  service 
of  religion.  Great  art  appears  wherever  the 
heart  of  man  has  been  able  to  manifest  it- 
self in  a  perfectly  beautiful  guise,  informed 
by  thoughts  of  radiant  truth,  and  inspired 
by  emotions  of  limitless  goodness.  Any 
piece  of  art  which  does  not  fulfil  its  obliga- 
tions to  truth  and  goodness,  as  well  as  to 
beauty,  is  necessarily  faulty  and  incomplete. 
At  first  thought  perhaps  you  might  not  be 
quite  ready  to  admit  such  a  canon  of  criti- 
cism as  this;  for  truth  is  the  object  of  all 
science,  and  goodness  is  the  object  of  all 
morality,  and  some  persons  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  say  that  art  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  either  with  morality  or  science,  but 
exists  for  its  own  sake  alone,  for  the  increase 
and  perpetuation  of  pleasure.  But  art  can- 
not give  us  complete  pleasure  if  it  only 
appeals  to  our  senses,  and  leaves  unsatisfied 
our  natural  curiosity  and  wonder,  —  our  need 
for  understanding  and  our  need  for  loving. 
That  is  to  say,  our  reason  and  our  emotion 

26 


must  always  be  appealed  to,  as  well  as  our 
sense  of  beauty. 

For  instance,  I  may  be  entranced  by  the 
beautiful  diction  and  cadence  of  a  poem, 
whose  conception  of  life  and  the  universe 
may  be  patently  false  and  puerile;  from 
which  point  of  view  it  could  not  please  me  at 
all,  but  must  disgust  me.  Or,  showing  a  just 
estimate  of  life,  it  might  be  true  to  philoso- 
phy and  science,  and  yet  celebrate  some 
mean  or  base  or  ignoble  or  cruel  incident  in 
a  way  that  would  be  revolting  to  my  spirit. 
While  it  satisfied  my  sense  of  lyric  beauty, 
it  might  fail  utterly  to  satisfy  my  sense  of 
right  or  my  desire  for  truth.  To  be  worth 
while,  the  fine  arts  must  satisfy  the  mind 
with  its  insatiable  curiosity,  and  the  soul 
with  its  love  of  justice,  quite  as  thoroughly 
as  they  slake  the  needs  of  the  senses. 

To    my   mind    the    great   preeminence    of 

Browning   as   a   poet   does   not   rest  on   any 

""profouncTphilosophy  to  be  found  in  his  work, 

nor   in  his  superior  craftsmanship,   nor  yet 

27 


in  his  generous  uplifting  impulse  and  tHe 
way  with  which  he  arouses  our  feelings,  but 
rather  on  the  fact  that  he  possessed  all  these 
three  requirements  of  a  poet  in  an  equally 
marked  degree.  The  work  of  Poe  or  of 
William  Morris,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
not  exhibit  this  fine  balance  of  strength, 
intellectuality,  and  passion.  On  its  sensuous 
side,  it  is  wonderfully  beautiful;  and  yet  it 
is  not  wholly  satisfying,  since  it  fails  to  give 
us  enough  to  think  about.  Its  mentality  is 
too  slight.  Neither  of  these  poets,  to  judge 
from  their  poetry  alone,  had  any  large  and 
firm  grasp  of  the  thought  of  the  world,  such 
as  Browning  possessed,  and  that  is  why  the 
wizardry  of  Poe  and  the  luring  charm  of 
Morris  are  not  more  effective.  An  artist 
must  be  also  a  thinker  and  a  prophet,  if  his 
creations  are  to  have  the  breath  of  life.  And 
again  poetry  may  easily  fail  by  being  over- 
laden with  this  same  requisite  of  mentality. 
It  may  have  more  thought  than  it  can  carry. 
Browning   himself,   in   several   of   his   later 

28 


2ri^t  ^nvpont  of  J&ottv» 

books,  like  the  "  Inn  Album,"  quite  loses 
the  poetic  poise  of  his  powers,  and  almost 
ceases  to  be  a  poet  in  his  desire  to  be  a 
philosopher. 

All  this  is  so  fundamentally  important  that 
we  cannot  have  it  too  clearly  in  mind.  It 
is  the  one  great  central  truth,  which  must 
illumine  all  criticism,  and  help  our  under- 
standing of  life,  as  well  as  of  art. 

When  we  say,  however,  that  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  art  to  give  pleasure  in  all  three  of 
these  possible  ways,  of  course  we  must  not 
suppose  that  the  arts  do  not  differ  one  from 
another  in  their  ability  to  meet  such  demand. 
The  art  of  music  cannot  satisfy  my  reason  as 
completely  as  the  art  of  poetry,  for  example, 
because  it  cannot  transmit  a  logical  statement 
of  fact.  It  may  please  my  senses  more 
readily  than  poetry  can;  it  may  arouse  my 
emotions  profoundly;  but  it  cannot  appeal 
to  my  mind  in  the  way  that  poetry  does. 
On  the  other  hand,  poetry  itself  Is  less 
strictly    rational    than    prose    literature ;     it 

29"- 


\  does  not  attempt  to  satisfy  our  curiosity  as 
\completely  as  prose  does,  though  it  pleases 
\the  aesthetic  sense  more.     There  need  be  no 

,  question  of  one  art  being  greater  or  less 
than  another;  a  sense  of  art  equality  is  born 
of  recognizing  the  interesting  ways  in  which 
they  vary,  and  of  realizing  that  each  has  only 
a  different  proportion  and  arrangement  of 
the  three  requirements  which  are  necessary 
to  them  all. 

To  speak  quite  simply,  then,  art  is  con- 
cerned first  of  all  in  the  creation  of  beauty. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  closely  related  to 
science  on  one  side  and  religion  on  the  other. 
But  how?  I  suppose  we  may  say  (to  speak 
again  quite  roughly)  that  science  is  all  we 
know  about  things,  and  religion  is  all  we 
feel  about  them.  Naturally,  therefore, 
every  artistic  conception  to  which  we  give 
expression  will  betray  something  both  of 
our  philosophy  and  of  our  morality.  It  can- 
not be  otherwise.  In  the  case  of  literature 
the   human   spirit   is   finding  expression   for 

30 


itself  through  the  medium  of  human  speech; 
and  speech  is  the  most  exact  means  we  have 
for  conveying  definite  thought  and  narrating 
facts.  So  that  every  literature  contains  a 
great  body  of  work  which  is  almost  pure 
science.  In  De  Quincey's  useful  phrase, 
"  There  is  a  literature  of  knowledge  and  a 
literature  of  power."  Euclid's  Geometry, 
Newton's  "  Principia,"  Darwin's  "  Origin 
of  Species,"  are  works  of  science  rather  than 
of  letters.  They  appeal  solely  to  our  reason, 
and  do  not  attempt  to  please  our  sense  of 
the  beautiful  by  their  literary  structure  and 
the  arrangement  of  verbal  sounds,  nor  to 
work  upon  our  emotions  in  any  way.  Euclid 
does  not  care  whether  you  like  his  forty- 
eighth  proposition  or  not,  so  long  as  he  can 
convince  you  that  it  is  true.  Neither  does 
Darwin  care  whether  his  theory  pleases  you 
or  not.  He  is  only  interested  in  getting  at 
the  truth.  How  that  truth  may  affect  our 
feelings  is  quite  another  matter.  It  is  so, 
too,  of  theological  and  philosophic  writers, 

31 


like  Spinoza  and  Kant;  they  are  primarily 
scientists  and  not  artists.  But  when  you  pass 
from  these  austere  reasoners  to  a  work  like 
Plato's  Dialogues,  you  perceive  that  two 
new  elements  have  entered  into  the  making  of 
^  a  book.  Plato  is  not  only  interested  in  find- 
f/St  ing  out  the  truth,  and  convincing  you  of  its 
reasonableness;  he  wishes  at  the  same  time 
to  make  the  truth  seem  pleasant  and  good; 
he  tries  to  enlist  your  feelings  on  his  side, 
and  also  to  satisfy  your  sense  of  beauty  with 
his  form  of  words.  He  has  added  a  religious 
value  and  an  art  value  to  the  theme  of  pure 
philosophy.  He  has  made  his  book  a  piece  of 
literature. 

And  as  literature  is  related  to  science  on 
one  hand,  it  is  related  to  religion  on  the 
other.  A  book  of  meditation  or  of  hymns 
may  be  extremely  devout  in  sentiment,  with- 
out possessing  any  value  as  literature.  Be- 
cause, very  often  it  takes  a  certain  set  of  ideas 
lor  granted,  without  caring  very  much 
whether  they  are  the  largest  and  truest  ideas 

32 


Z^t  ^utrtioi^e  of  Porttj? 

or  not;  and  also  because  it  makes  no  effort 
to  be  fine  and  distinguished  in  its  diction. 
It  may  be  entirely  worthy  in  the  fervour  of 
its  sentiment,  and  yet  be  quite  unworthy  in 
an  artistic  way.  With  great  religious  books 
this  is  not  so.  Works  like  the  Psalms,  or 
passages  of  Isaiah,  or  the  poetry  of  Job,  or 
Tennyson's  "  Crossing  the  Bar,"  are,  first  of 
all,  religious  in  their  intention;  they  are 
meant  to  play  upon  our  emotional  nature; 
but  they  do  not  stop  there;  they  are  cast  in  a 
form  of  words  so  perfect  and  fresh  that  it 
arrests  us  at  once,  and  satisfies  our  love  of 
beauty.  At  the  same  time  they  accord  with 
the  most  profound  and  fundamental  ideas 
about  life  and  nature  that  humanity  has  been 
capable  of.  They  satisfy  our  mind  and  our 
aesthetic  sense,  as  well  as  our  spiritual  need. 
It  is  because  of  this  threefold  completeness, 
that  we  class  them  as  pieces  of  literature,  and 
not  merely  as  records  of  religious  enthusiasm. 
Depth  of  religious  feeling  alone  would  not 
have  been  sufficient  to  make  them  literature, 

33 


any  more  than  clear  thinking  and  accu- 
rate reason  alone  could  have  made  Plato's 
book  a  piece  of  literature. 

We  must  remember,  too,  how  vapid  the 
artistic  quality  is,  when  it  exists  by  itself 
without  adequate  intelligence  and  underlying 
purpose.  Think  how  much  of  modern  art  is 
characterized  by  nothing  but  form,  how 
devoid  it  is  of  ideas,  how  lacking  in  anything 
like  passionate  enthusiasm.  I  believe  this 
is  due  to  some  extent  to  our  failure  to  realize 
that  the  three  components  of  which  I  have 
been  speaking  are  absolutely  requisite  in  all 
art.  We  forget  that  there  is  laid  upon  art 
any  obligation  except  to  be  beautiful;  we 
forget  that  it  must  embody  the  truest  thought 
man  has  been  able  to  reach,  and  enshrine 
the  noblest  impulses  he  has  entertained. 
This  is  not  so  much  a  duty  for  art  to  under- 
take as  an  inescapable  destiny  and  natural 
function. 

It  is  a  sad  day  for  a  people  when  their  art 
becomes  divorced  from  the  current  of  their 

34 


life,  when  it  comes  to  be  looked  on  as  some- 
thing precious  but  unimportant,  having  noth- 
ing at  all  to  do  with  their  social  structure, 
their  education,  their  political  ideals,  their 
faith,  or  their  daily  vocations.  But  I  fear 
that  we  ourselves  are  living  in  just  such  a 
time.  Fine  arts  may  be  patronized  even 
liberally,  but  you  could  not  say  that  they 
have  any  hold  on  us  as  a  people;  we  have 
no  wide  feeling  for  them,  no  profound  con- 
viction of  their  importance. 

There  may  be  many  reasons  for  this,  and 
it  is  a  question  with  which  we  are  not  directly 
concerned  here.  One  reason  there  is,  how- 
ever, it  seems  to  me,  which  is  too  important 
not  to  be  referred  to.  The  fine  arts  are  an 
outgrowth  and  finer  development  of  the 
industrial  arts.  One  would  expect  them  to 
flourish  only  in  a  nation  where  the  industrial 
arts  flourish;  only  in  such  a  nation  would 
the  great  body  of  the  people  be  infused  with 
the  popular  love  of  beauty,  and  the  feeling 
for  art,  which   could   create   a   stimulating, 

35 


JEJje  poftts  of  atfe 

artistic  atmosphere  in  which  great  artists 
could  be  born  and  nourished.  So  much  will 
be  readily  admitted.  Now,  under  modern 
industrial  and  commercial  conditions,  the  in- 
dustrial arts  are  dead;  they  have  been 
killed  by  the  exigencies  of  our  business  pro- 
cesses. The  industrial  artist  has  become 
the  factory  hand.  To  produce  anything 
worth  while,  either  in  the  fine  or  the  indus- 
trial arts,  it  is  necessary  that  the  worker 
should  not  be  hurried,  and  should  have  some 
freedom  to  do  his  work  in  his  own  way, 
according  to  his  own  fancy  and  enjoyment. 
The  modern  workman,  on  the  contrary,  is  a 
slave  to  his  conditions;  he  can  only  earn 
his  bread  by  working  with  a  maximum  of 
speed  and  a  minimum  of  conscientiousness. 
He  can  have  neither  pleasure  nor  pride  in  his 
work;  and  consequently  that  work  can  have 
no  artistic  value  whatever.  The  result  is, 
that  not  only  have  we  almost  no  industrial 
arts,  properly  speaking,  but  the  modern 
workman  is  losing  all  natural  taste  and  love 

36 


cue  ^nvpout  of  ^ottvp 

of  beauty  through  being  denied  all  exercise 
of  that  faculty.  If  you  allow  me  to  learn  the 
art  of  a  book-binder,  or  a  potter,  or  a  rug- 
maker,  and  to  follow  it  for  myself  as  best 
I  can,  my  perception  and  love  of  what  is 
beautiful  will  grow  with  my  growing  skill. 
But  if  you  put  me  to  work  in  a  modern  fac- 
tory, where  such  things,  or  rather  where 
hideous  imitations  of  those  things,  are  pro- 
duced, I  should  not  be  able  to  exercise  my 
creative  talent  at  all,  and  whatever  love  of 
beauty  I  may  have  had  will  perish  for  lack 
of  use.  Thus  it  happens  that  the  average 
man  to-day  has  so  little  appreciation  of 
beauty,  so  little  instinctive  taste,  and  art  and 
letters  occupy  so  small  a  place  in  our  regard. 
Before  we  can  reinstate  them  in  that  position 
of  honour  which  they  have  always  held, 
hitherto,  among  civilized  nations,  we  shall 
have  to  find  some  solution  for  our  industrial 
difficulties. 

It  may  seem,  at  a  superficial  glance,  that 
the  arts  are  all  very  well  as  a  pastime,  for 

37 


8C1b^  ^ottvs  of  ILIU 

the  enjoyment  of  the  few,  but  can  have  no 
imperative  call  for  busy  men  and  women 
in  active  modern  life.  And  if  we  should  be 
told  that,  as  a  nation,  we  have  no  wide-spread 
love  of  beauty,  no  popular  taste  in  artistic 
matters,  we  would  not  take  the  accusation 
very  much  to  heart.  We  should  probably 
admit  it,  and  turn  with  pride  to  point  to  our 
wonderful  material  success,  our  achievements 
in  the  realm  of  trade  and  commerce,  our  un- 
matched prosperity  and  wealth.  But  that 
answer  will  not  serve.  You  may  lead  me 
through  the  streets  of  our  great  cities,  and 
fill  my  ears  with  stories  of  our  uncounted 
millions  of  money,  our  unrivalled  advance 
among  the  nations,  but  that  will  not  divert 
my  soul  from  horror  at  a  state  of  society 
where  municipal  government  is  a  venial 
farce,  where  there  is  little  reverence  for 
law,  where  mammon  is  a  real  God,  and 
where  every  week  there  are  instances  of  mob 
violence,  as  revolting  as  any  that  ever  stained 
the   history  of   the   emperors   of   degenerate 

38 


Rome.  We  may  brag  our  loudest  to  each 
other  and  even  to  ourselves,  but  the  soul  is 
not  deceived.  She  sits  at  the  centre  of  being, 
judging  honestly  and  severely  our  violences, 
our  folly,  and  our  crime.  And  when  at  last 
we  come  to  our  senses,  and  perceive  to  what 
a  condition  of  shame  we  have  fallen  from 
our  high  estate  as  a  freedom-loving  people, 
we  may  be  able  to  restore  some  of  those 
[ideals  which  we  have  sacrificed,  —  ideals  of 
j  common  honesty,  of  civic  liberty,  of  simple 
unostentatious  dignity,  of  social  order,  law, 
and  security. 

'  All  this,  of  course,  goes  almost  without 
saying.  But  the  point  I  wish  to  make  is, 
that  this  decay  in  moral  standards  goes  hand 
in  hand  with  our  loss  of  taste.  Our  sense 
of  beauty  and  our  sense  of  goodness  are  so 
closely  related  that  any  injury  to  the  one 
means  an  injury  to  the  other.  You  cannot 
expect  the  nation  which  cares  nothing  at 
all  for  art  to  care  very  much  for  justice  or 
righteousness.     You    cannot   expect    a    man 

39 


©5^  3loetr»  of  mtt 

who  does  not  care  how  hideous  his  surround- 
ings are  to  care  very  fastidiously  about  his 
moral  obligations.  And  we  shall  never  reach 
that  national  position  of  true  greatness,  which 
many  Americans  have  dreamed  of;  we  shall 
lose  entirely  those  personal  traits  of  dignity, 
honour,  and  kindliness,  which  many  old- 
fashioned  Americans  still  retain,  unless  we 
recognize  the  vital  need  of  moral  standards 
and  aesthetic  ideals  working  together  hand  in 
hand,  and  set  ourselves  to  secure  them. 

And  if  you  ask  me  why  America  is  pro- 
ducing for  the  most  part  only  that  which  is 
mediocre  in  art  and  literature,  I  am  forced 
to  reply,  that  it  is  because  the  average  man 
among  us  has  so  little  respect  for  moral 
ideals.  In  a  restless  age  we  may  experiment 
with  all  kinds  of  reform,  but  no  permanent 
scheme  of  social  betterment  can  dispense  with 
personal  obligation  and  integrity.  It  all 
comes  back  to  the  man  at  last.  We  don't 
need  socialism,  or  imperialism,  or  free  trade, 
or  public  ownership  of  monopolies,  or  state 

40 


control  of  trusts,  so  much  as  we  need  honest 
men,  —  men  in  public  life  and  private  enter- 
prise who  have  some  standard  of  conduct 
higher  than  insatiable  self-interest. 

Such  ideals  of  conduct,  in  the  widest  sense, 
it  is  the  aim  of  art  to  supply,  and  education  U 
to  inculcate.  And  education,  like  art,  has 
its  three-fold  object.  It  has  to  set  itself  not 
only  to  train  our  minds  in  a  desire  for  the 
truth,  but  at  the  same  time  to  train  our  spirit 
to  love  only  what  is  good,  and  our  bodies  to 
take  pleasure  only  in  what  is  beautiful  and 
wholesome;  and  the  work  of  education,  like 
that  of  art,  must,  while  proceeding  in  any  one 
of  these  directions,  be  intimately  related  with 
the  workings  of  the  other  two.  Emerson's 
wise  phrase  is  profoundly  applicable  here: 

"  All  are  needed  by  each  one. 
Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone." 

An  education  or  an  art  which  does  not 
quicken  the  conscience,  and  stimulate  and 
refine  all  our  senses  and  instincts,  along  with 

41 


2rj|e  H^otivs  of  atfe 

the    growing    reason,    must    still    remain    a 
faulty  process  at  best. 

Let  me  ask  all  who  are  engaged  in  the 
great  occupation  of  teaching,  and  in  the  de- 
lightful art  of  writing,  to  consider  whether 
this  is  not  so.  I  am  sure  we  cannot  lay  too 
much  stress  on  this  philosophic  conception 
of  man  in  the  three  aspects  of  his  nature.  I 
believe  it  is  a  helpful  solvent  of  many  diffi- 
culties in  education,  in  art,  in  life,  in  social 
and  political  aims.  I  believe  that  without 
it  all  of  our  endeavours  for  advancement  in 
civilization  will  be  sadly  hampered  and 
retarded,  if  not  frustrated  altogether,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  art  and  civilization  and 
social  order  exist  for  man;  and  they  must, 
therefore,  be  adapted  to  the  three  differing 
phases  of  his  requirement.  While  his  intel- 
lectual needs  and  capacities  must  be  trained 
I  and  provided  for;  his  great  emotional  and 
/  spiritual  need  and  powers  must  be  no  less 
adequately    recognized    and    exercised,    and 


42 


©lie  l^utpofse  of  Jfoetts 

his  sensitive  physical  instincts  wisely  guided 
and  developed. 

With  this  notion  in  mind,  we  may  turn  for 
a  few  minutes  to  consider  what  tasks  litera- 
ture must  set  itself,  and  what  it  may  be 
expected  to  do  for  a  people.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  the  business  of  literature,  as  of 
all  the  arts,  to  create  an  illusion,  —  to  pro- 
ject upon  the  imagination  a  mimic  world, 
true  to  life,  as  we  say,  and  at  the  same  time 
more  goodly  and  fair  than  the  actual  one 
we  know.  For  unless  the  world  of  art  be 
in  some  way  more  delightful  than  the  world 
of  our  every-day  experience,  why  should  we 
ever  visit  it?  We  turn  for  sympathy  to  art, 
for  recreation  and  refreshment,  for  solace 
and  inspiration.  We  ask  to  find  in  it,  ready 
to  hand,  these  helpful  and  pleasant  qualities 
which  are  so  hard  to  find  in  real  life.  And 
the  art  which  does  not  give  them  to  us  is 
disappointing,  however  clever  it  may  be. 
It  is  this  necessity  for  being  beautiful,  this 
necessity  for  providing  an  immediate  pleas- 

43 


^ftt  a^oettff  of  WLift 

ure,  that  makes  pure  realism  unsatisfying  in 
art.  Realism  is  necessary,  but  not  sufficient. 
For  instance,  if  you  bring  me  a  photo- 
graph of  a  beautiful  elm-shaded  street  in  an 
old  New  England  town,  it  fills  my  eye 
instantly  with  a  delightful  scene.  But  by 
and  by  something  in  it  begins  to  offend  me, 
and  I  see  that  the  telegraph-pole  is  too 
obtrusive,  and  spoils  the  composition  and 
balance  of  the  picture.  The  photograph 
loses  its  value  as  a  pleasure-giving  piece  of 
realism.  Now  a  painter  in  reproducing  the 
same  scene  would  probably  have  left  out 
the  telegraph-pole.  That  is  the  difference. 
And  that  is  why  photography,  as  usually 
practised,  is  not  one  of  the  fine  arts.  It  is 
said  by  those  who  contend  for  realism,  for 
the  photographic  in  literature,  that  art  must 
be  true  to  nature,  and  so  it  must,  to  a  certain 
extent;  but  there  are  other  things  beside 
the  physical  fact  to  which  it  must  be  true. 
Your  photograph  was  true  to  nature,  but  it 
was  not  true  to  my  memory  of  the  scene. 

44 


8CJie  ^uvpont  of  ^ottvs 

The  painter's  reproduction  was  truer  to  that; 
he  preserved  for  me  the  delightful  impres- 
sion that  I  carried  away  on  that  wonderful 
June  morning,  when  I  visited  the  spot.  For 
me  his  picture  is  more  accurate  than  the 
photograph.  When  I  was  there,  I  probably 
did  not  see  the  telegraph-pole  at  all.  It 
is  therefore  right  that  literature  and  art 
should  attempt  something  more  than  the 
exact  reproduction  of  things  as  they  are,  and 
should  give  us  the  vision,  not  the  view,  of 
a  city  more  charming  and  a  country  more 
delectable  to  dwell  in  than  any  our  feet  have 
ever  trod,  and  should  people  its  world  with 
characters  varied  and  fascinating  as  in  real 
life,  but  even  more  satisfying  than  any  we 
have  ever  known. 

There  is  another  reason  why  art  must 
be  more  than  photographic;  as  time  goes 
by  and  the  earth  grows  old,  man  himself 
develops,  however  slowly,  in  nobleness  and 
understanding.  His  life  becomes  different 
from  what  it  was.     He  gradually  brings  it 

V45 


STiie  J^orttff  of  ILift 

into  conformity  with  certain  ideals  and 
aspirations  which  have  occurred  to  him. 
These  new  ideals  and  aspirations  have  always 
made  their  first  appearance  in  art  and  litera- 
ture before  they  were  realized  in  actual  life. 
Imagination  is  our  lamp  upon  the  difficult 
path  of  progress.  So  that  even  in  its  out- 
ward aspect,  art  must  differ  from  nature. 
The  world  is  by  no  means  perfect,  but  it 
is  always  tending  toward  perfection,  and  it 
is  our  business  to  help  that  tendency.  As 
long  as  we  are  satisfied  with  the  photograph, 
we  are  content  to  have  the  telegraph-pole. 
And  we  shall  continue  to  be  satisfied  with 
them  both  until  the  artist  comes  and  shows 
us  the  blemish.  As  soon  as  we  perceive  the 
fault,  we  begin  to  want  the  telegraph-pole 
removed.  This  is  what  a  clever  writer 
meant  when  he  said  that  art  does  not  follow 
nature,  but  nature  follows  art.  We  must 
]  make  our  lives  more  and  more  beautiful, 
!  simply  because,  by  so  doing,  we  make  our- 
I  selves  more  healthy  and  happy.  To  this 
5  46 


end,  art  must  supply  us  with  standards,  and 
keep  us  constantly  reminded  of  what  perfec- 
tion is,  so  that  living  much  in  the  influence  of 
good  art,  ugliness  may  become  less  and  less 

possible.  ^ 

"^  lay  so  much  stress  on  this  point  because 
we  have  somewhat  lost  the  conviction  that 
literature  and  art  must  be  more  beautiful 
than  life.  We  readily  admit  that  they  must 
be  sincere  servants  of  truth,  and  exemplars 
of  noble  sentiment,  but  there  is  an  idea 
abroad,  that,  in  its  form  and  substance,  art 
need  only  copy  nature.  This,  I  believe,  is 
what  our  grandfathers  might  have  called 
a  pestilent  heresy. 

If  art  and  literature  are  devoted  to  the 
service  of  beauty,  no  less  are  they  dedicated 
to  the  service  of  truth  and  goodness.  In  the 
hrase  which  Arnold  used  to  quote,  it  is 
:heir  business  to  make  reason  and  the  will  of 
3od  prevail.  So  that  while  literature  must 
"ulfil  the  obligations  laid  upon  it  to  be  de- 
lightful, —  to  charm   and  entertain  us  with 

47 


ffil^t  3|0ftt»  of  fLiU 

perennial  pleasure,  —  quite  as  scrupulously 
must  it  meet  our  demands  for  knowledge, 
and  satisfy  our  spiritual  needs.  To  meet 
the  first  of  these  demands,  of  course  it  is 
not  necessary  for  literature  to  treat  of  scien- 
tific subjects;  it  must,  however,  be  enlight- 
ened by  the  soundest  philosophy  at  its 
command,  and  informed  with  all  the  knowl- 
edge of  its  time.  It  may  not  deal  directly 
with  the  thought  of  its  age,  but  it  must 
never  be  at  variance  with  truth.  JThere^ 
can  be  no  quarrel__hel:ffi£eii-&cience  and  art, 

pfor   art   sooner   or   later   makes   use    of    all 

!    knowledge,    all    discoveries,    all    new    ideas. 

'  It  is  the  business  of  art  to  assimilate  new 
knowledge,  and  make  it  a  power;  for  knowl- 
edge is  not  power,  so  long  as  it  remains  mere 
knowledge,  nor  until  it  passes  from  the 
mind   into   the   domain   of   the  will. 

In  a  scientific  age  like  our  own,  when  the 
limits  of  knowledge  are  being  extended  so 
rapidly,  prose  is  a  much  more  acceptable 
medium  of  expression  than  poetry,  because 

i  48 


8rtie  ^nxpont  of  ^ottvjn 

it  can  keep  nearer  to  science  than  poetry  can;  ' 
though   poetry,   in   the   long   run,   has   quite  \ 
as  much  need  of  accurate  and  wide  informa- 
tion as  prose  has. 

It  is  only  that  they  make  different  use  of 
the  same  material.  Prose  serves  to  bring  us 
definite  reports  of  science,  it  appeals  to  our 
reason,  our  curiosity.  But  poetry  has  another  ^ 
motive  as  well;  it  wishes  to  emphasize  its 
subject  so  that  we  can  not  only  know  it  more 
clearly,  but  feel  about  it  more  deeply.  Of 
course  prose  has  this  aim  in  view  also; 
though  to  a  less  extent,  and  it  invades  the 
dominion  of  poetry  whenever  this  aim  be- 
comes paramount.  So  that  in  literature  we 
must  never  attempt  to  separate  prose  from 
poetry,  too  dogmatically. 

The  attempt  which  literature  makes  to 
deepen  our  feeling  about  a  subject  is  the 
spiritual  purpose  of  art.  And  this  spiritual 
or  moral  influence  is  always  present  in  all 
literature,  in  some  degree  and  condition, 
whether  apparent  or  not.     Art  has  its  relig-   _ 

49 


/ 


^fft  ^otixs  of  atfe 

ious  value,  not  because  it  deals  directly  with 
religious  themes,  but  because  it  plays  upon 
our  moral  nature  and  influences  our  emo- 
tions. How  intrinsically  incumbent  it  is 
upon  art,  therefore,  to  stimulate  our  gen- 
erous and  kindly  feelings,  rather  than  our 
cruel  or  violent  or  selfish  impulses. 

It  may  often  be  necessary  for  art  and 
literature  to  deal  with  human  crime  and 
depravity  and  moral  obliquity,  but  it  must 
never  dwell  upon  them  excessively  nor  un- 
necessarily, nor  ever  make  them  seem  to 
prevail.  For  evil  does  not  rule  the  world; 
however  powerful  it  may  seem  at  moments, 
in  the  long  run  it  is  overcome  by  good. 
There  is  a  tendency  in  modern  letters  to 
deal  with  repulsive  themes,  and  depict  for 
us  the  frailty  and  sorry  shortcomings  of 
human  nature,  and  to  do  this  with  an  almost 
scientific  emphasis.  Some  people  praise  this 
sort  of  thing,  as  being  true  to  life;  while 
others  call  it  immoral,  because  it  touches 
upon  such  subjects  at  all.     A  juster  view  of 

50 


the  matter  may  perhaps  lead  us  to  a  different 
opinion.  Since  it  is  the  prime  duty  of  art 
to  make  us  happy,  to  give  us  encouragement 
and  joy,  to  urge  and  support  our  spirits,  to 
ennoble  and  enrich  our  lives,  surely  the  one 
way  in  which  art  can  be  most  immoral  is 
by  leaving  us  depressed  and  sad,  and  un- 
certain of  the  final  issue  between  sorrow  and 
gladness. 

I  -have  not  said  much  about  the  technic 
of  poetry,  because  I  wished  first  to  indicate, 
if  I  could,  a  scope  and  destiny  for  poetic 
art  more  significant  than  we  are  accustomed 
to  grant  it.  If  we  first  assure  ourselves  of  the 
vital  importance  of  art  to  a  nation,  if  we 
set  ourselves  resolutely  to  change  the  tenor 
of  public  sentiment  in  regard  to  it,  if  we 
turn  from  the  absorbing  and  ridiculous 
worship  of  superfluous  possessions,  and  de- 
vote ourselves  generously  to  the  cause  of 
beauty  and  kindliness,  the  specific  develop- 
ment of  poetry  may  safely  be  left  to  take 
care  of  itself. 

51 


Mott^  to  Sui^e  ©oetrg 


Surely  one  may  say  the  first  requisite  for 
the  appreciation  of  poetry  is  an  open  mind. 
To  say  this,  indeed,  is  only  to  reiterate  the 
primal  prerequisite  of  all  mental  and  spirit- 
ual growth.  Once  let  your  mind  become 
set  or  fixed  in  any  mould  of  thought,  com- 
mitted too  irrevocably  to  any  single  idea, 
once  allow  yourself  to  be  in  the  least  a  parti- 
san or  a  zealot,  and  all  growth  is  arrested 
immediately.  To  hold  any  notion  or  creed 
as  irrevocably  final,  is  to  limit  the  power 
and  reach  of  intelligence.  Experience  should 
teach  us  better. 

I  may  be  an  enthusiastic  follower  of  this 
or  that  cult  for  a  time;  but  as  I  have  out- 
grown many  tenets  of  thought  in   reaching 

52 


motn  to  S^utroe  ^ottv9 

my  present  attitude  of  mind,  I  must  admit 
that    my    present    philosophy    is    probably 
ephemeral  and  certainly  transitional.   Creeds 
are  but  inns   for  the  pious  wayfarer  upon 
the  road  to  perfection.     We  are  all  higher 
vagabonds,  as  it  were,  putting  up  now  with 
one  host,  now  with  another.     Surely,  then, 
I  should  hold  my  creed  with  a  light  grasp, 
and  insist  upon  it  with  becoming  moderation. 
One" may  allow  a  generous  warmth  of  heart; 
one  must  never  permit  any  heat  of  mind. 
To  perceive  that  everything  is   provisional, 
and  that  the  end  of  our  spiritual  pilgrimage 
is  far  beyond  our  range  of  vision,  —  this  is 
one  of  the  first  gifts  of  culture.    The  deadly 
frost  of  prejudice  blights  the  flower  of  life. 
It  is  not  only  as  appreciators  of  art  that  we 
need  openness  of  mind,  but  also  in  the  com- 
mon conduct  of  life.     Modern  science  has 
brought  us  no  greater  good  than  this  very 
temper   of   toleration,   this   tentative   mental 
condition,    this    faith    which    is    strong,    yet 
flexible.      Indeed    the    scientist   offers    us    a 

53 


?ri^e  j&ottvs  of  aife 

splendid  example  of  patient  detachment. 
He  allows  himself  to  be  interested,  to  be 
devoted,  even  to  be  ardent,  but  never  to  be 
biassed  nor  overconfident.  He  knows  that 
truth  has  not  all  been  compassed,  and  that 
the  conclusions  of  to-day  may  become  the 
axioms  of  to-morrow,  or  its  fables  and  super- 
stitions. When  a  man  of  science  comes 
upon  a  new  fact  in  nature,  he  does  not  say 
to  himself,  "  Well,  this  may  be  all  very 
pretty,  but  I  don't  believe  in  it  because  it 
does  not  fit  my  theory!"  He  proceeds  to 
try  to  comprehend  the  significance  of  his 
new  knowledge,  and  to  readjust  his  theory 
to  it. 

This  is  precisely  the  habit  of  mind  we 
must  cultivate  before  we  can  appreciate  any 
art.  Between  science  and  religion  there  can 
never  be  any  quarrel.  Between  science  and 
formalism  there  can  be  neither  compromise 
nor  peace.  To  bring  new  truths  to  the  test 
of  old  standards  is  the  indubitable  mark  of 
the  Philistine..   We  must  crucify  the  Philis- 

54 


fl^otp  to  Sutrge  poetry 

tine  in  ourselves  (Heaven  forgive  the  bar- 
barous metaphor!)  before  we  can  hope  to 
enter  even  the  outer  courts  of  the  temple  of 
art.  I  say  temple  of  art,  for  art  at  its  best 
is  essentially  only  religion  in  another  guise. 
You  will  see  then  with  what  seriousness  and 
willingness  and  sweetness  we  ought  to  ap- 
proach art.  As  it  is  the  business  of  the  fine 
arts  to  reveal  to  us  new  beauties  of  thought 
and  aspiration  and  sensibility,  surely  we 
must  strive  to  make  our  mind,  our  spirit, 
our  senses,  as  alert  as  possible  —  to  be  as 
unprejudiced  as  possible,  as  sensitive  as  pos- 
sible. And  we  can  never  be  sensitive  nor 
unprejudiced  while  we  permit  ourselves  a 
habit  of  dogmatizing.  I  dare  say  the  tempta- 
tion to  dogmatize  is  one  of  the  supreme 
snares  of  the  Evil  One,  one  of  the  sins  that 
cannot  be  forgiven  unto  men. 

Of  all  lamentable  states  of  mind  in  which  | 
we  may  approach  a  work  of  art,  the  most  j 
awful  is  that  of  the  meek  and  humble  igno- 
ramus who   admits   that  "  he   doesn't  know 

55 


ttfit  poetts  of  mtt 

anything  about  art,  but  he  knows  what  he 
likes." 

My  foolish  friend,  it  isn't  your  business 
to  know  anything  about  art;  the  artist 
doesn't  know  anything  about  art  himself. 
It  is  your  business  and  his  to  try  to  find 
out  something  about  it.  Perhaps  you  think 
you  know  why  two  and  two  make  four,  or 
why  the  sun  is  yellow,  or  the  sea  blue,  or 
how  birds  fly,  or  water  runs  down-hill.  You 
see  it  is  absurd  to  say  you  "  don't  know  any- 
thing about  art " ;  you  ought  to  say  you 
don't  know  anything  at  all.  And  as  for 
knowing  what  you  like,  that  is  even  more 
ridiculous.  You  don't  like  the  same  thing 
to-day  that  you  did  yesterday.  And,  more- 
over, you  have  not  the  least  right  in  the 
world  to  like  the  wrong  thing. 

It  is  just  as  wicked  to  admire  what  is 
ugly,  as  it  is  to  say  what  is  false  or  to  com- 
mit a  crime.  It  is  just  as  pernicious  a  per- 
version of  truth  to  like  the  wrong  things,  as 


56 


l^oH}  to  Slutrgr  ^ottv» 

to  believe  the  wrong  things,   or  to   do  the 
wrong  things. 

It  is  quite  as  much  our  business  to  find 
out  what  is  beautiful  and  try  to  admire 
that,  as  it  is  to  find  out  what  is  true  and  try 
to  believe  that,  or  to  find  out  what  is  good 
and  try  to  accomplish  that. 

If  -I  do  not  like  Shakespeare  and  the 
Bible,  you  will  admit  I  should  have  the 
decency  to  conceal  my  shameful  barbarity 
and  pray  for  enlightenment.  But  equally, 
if  I  do  not  like  Walt  Whitman  or  Monet, 
I  ought  to  suppress  my  distaste.  Why?  Not 
because  these  men  have  been  placed  beyond 
doubt  among  the  immortals,  but  because  the 
prejudiced  and  carping  mood  is  hurtful 
to  myself.  I  must  approach  Meredith  and 
Maeterlinck  with  the  same  reverence  with 
which  I  approach  St.  Mark.  True,  they 
may  not  be  equally  inspired;  but  I  do  not 
know  that;  and  I  can  never  know  it,  if  I 
come  to  them  with  a  mind  already  half- 
made  up. 

57 


E^t  ^ottvp  of  mtt 

Some  persons  seem  to  have  minds  like 
mazes.  It  is  next  to  impossible  to  get  an 
idea  into  their  heads;  and,  once  lodged 
there,  it  never  gets  out.  The  avenues  of  their 
intelligence  are  all  beset  with  barbs  and 
thorns  and  prickles  —  a  provision  of  nature 
for  the  self-preservation  of  identity,  but  an 
unfortunate  endowment  to  bring  to  the  ap- 
preciation of  art. 

I  have  insisted  on  this  openness  of  .niind< 
in  judging  poetry,  because  without  it  we 
cannot  begin  to  judge  of  anything.  But 
suppose  that  we  bring  to  the  appreciation 
of  poetry  a  mind  thus  eager,  simple,  modest, 
and  unprejudiced,  are  there  any  hints  that 
will  help  us  in  judging  so  delicate  a  work? 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  borne  in 
mind  that  poetry,  like  any  other  fine  art, 
makes  a  threefold  appeal  to  us.  If  we  re- 
member that  art  is,  vaguely  speaking,  the 
manifestation  of  our  human  nature,  we  will 
at  once  perceive  that  it  must  partake  of  the 
threefold  character  of  that  nature.     It  must 

58 


H^oto  to  3(u9se  ^oetrs 

express  our  mental,  our  moral,  and  our 
physical  character.  And  equally  it  must 
appeal  to  each  of  these  three  phases  of  our- 
selves, as  we  bring  ourselves  under  its  in- 
fluence. The  best  poetry  will  charm  our 
ear,  will  convince  our  reason,  will  enlist  our 
sympathy.  It  is  the  endeavour  of  art  to 
move  the  whole  man.  And  those  persons 
err  who  lay  particular  stress  on  any  one 
quality  of  art  at  the  expense  of  the  other 
two.  One  must  avoid  that;  one  must  avoid 
didacticism  and  sentimentalism,  quite  as 
much  as  sensuality,  in  art. 

In  the  work  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  for  in- 
stance, we  have  poetry  appealing  to  the 
senses  in  its  most  perfect  form.  Every  one 
admits  that  no  such  incomparable  achieve- 
ment in  verse  has  ever  been  given  to  us 
in  English.  Yet  it  fails  of  that  great  power 
over  men  of  which  poetry  is  capable,  be- 
cause it  makes  so  little  appeal  to  our  hearts 
and  minds.  In  Browning,  on  the  other  hand, 
you  may  often   find   the   perfect  beauty   of 

59 


8CJie  JPoettff  of  Hlft 

poetry  spoiled  by  an  overstress  of  thought, 
or  by  an  inattention  to  form.  I  do  not  mean 
this  in  any  cheap  and  petty  sense;  for 
Browning  usually  is  a  wonderful  master  of 
versification.  But  at  times  that  fertile  quest- 
ing brain  could  pursue  a  curious  thought 
too  strenuously  and  too  far,  not  too  far  for 
philosophy,  but  too  far  for  poetry.  That  is 
the  difference.  And  again,  the  poetry  of 
Pope  is  an  instance  of  poetry  which  is  too 
purely  mental  in  its  appeal.  Consummate 
common  sense  is  there,  certainly;  but  one 
does  not  live  by  common  sense  alone.  And 
while  it  is  foolish  to  say  that  the  "  Essay  on 
Man  ''  is  not  poetry  at  all,  as  some  extremists 
would,  it  is  right  enough  to  say  that  it  is 
not  the  best  poetry,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  it  is  content  to  enlist  our  reason  alone, 
leaving  our  senses  and  emotions  almost  un- 
moved. As  Arnold  said,  that  was  the  prose 
period  of  English  literature;  and  prose  is 
a  lower  form  of  art  than  poetry,  it  is  a  step 
nearer  science. 

60 


ll^oUi  to  3^utr0(  J&ottvs 

So  poetry  may  be  perfectly  obvious,  per- 
fectly clear  in  the  first  reading;  it  may 
contain  much  new  knowledge  and  rare  wis- 
dom, and  yet  be  very  poor  poetry  after  all. 

**  An  honest  man's  the  noblest  work  of  God," 

is  a  proper  sentiment,  but  it  leaves  one  cold. 
It  is  just  as  true,  perhaps,  as  saying  — 

a+b  =  c, 

and  just  as  chilly.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
is  an  old  friend,  the  Jabberwock,  a  poem 
which  does  not  pretend  to  approach  us 
through  the  pure  reason;  yet  what  a  fund 
of  feeling  it  has!  How  we  warm  toward  it! 
The  kingdom  of  poetry  is  bordered  on  the 
north  by  mathematics,  and  on  the  south  by 
music,  partaking  of  the  character  of  each. 

To  be  a  good  judge  of  poetry  one  must 
be  a  completely  normal  man,  with  a  clear 
brain,  a  happy  disposition,  and  a  good  appe-/ 
tite.    If  you  are  one  of  those  weedy,  dyspep- 
tic, ill-ventilated,  academic  creatures,  living 

6i 


E^t  l&ottvp  of  3Litt 

with  your  nose  in  a  book,  you  will  only 
emphasize  the  purely  mental  qualities  of 
poetry;  you  will  miss  much  of  its  wonderful 
power  through  your  own  incapacity  for 
sheer  innocent,  sensuous  elation.  And  yet,  if 
you  are  beery  and  gross  and  self-indulgent, 
you  will  never  understand  the  finer  intima- 
tions of  the  muse.  To  judge  poetry,  one 
must  be  a  man  of  affairs,  yet  without  hurry; 
a  religionist,  yet  without  heat;  a  philoso- 
pher, yet  without  a  system.  One  must  be  a 
generous  lover,  infatuated,  but  not  insane; 
an  unflinching  logician,  yet  not  inflexible; 
and  one  must  be  an  athlete,  also. 
It  is  hard  to  judge  poetry.       ' 


62 


monU^ealtji 


A  DISCUSSION  was  started  not  long  ago  by 
a  college  professor  in  Chicago  who  de- 
clared that  a  man  who  works  with  his  hands 
cannot  be  a  poet.  It  is  one  of  those  definite 
statements  that  sound  conclusive  and  have 
enough  truth  in  them  to  arouse  discussion. 
In  one  way  it  is  true,  and  in  another  way 
it  is  exactly  the  reverse  of  the  truth. 

Under  our  present  social  system,  or  rather 
'y^ouv  anjjsQcial  system,  a  man  who  works  with 
his  hands  cannot  be  a  poet,  simply  because  he 
can  scarcely  be  a  man.  He  cannot  be  his 
own  master,  and  he  cannot  command  that 
amount  of  freedom  which  every  creator  of 
the  beautiful  needs.    The  creation  of  beauty 

63 


^0 


requires  first  of  all  that  the  artist  shall  have 
freedom  to  do  his  own  work  in  his  own 
way.  But  the  modern  man  who  works  with 
his  hands  is  a  slave  to  our  mercantile  system. 
In  that  complex  and  highly  organized  ma- 
chine called  modern  civilization,  it  is  not 
possible  for  any  working  man  to  remain 
free. 

On  the  other  hand,  abstractly  speaking, 
it  is  much  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  a 
man  who  does  not  work  with  his  hands 
cannot  be  a  poet. 

What  do  you  understand  by  a  poet?  What 
is    his    office    and    business    in    life?     What  y 
part  does  he  play  in  the  world?     First,  and    u 
speaking  most  roughly,  he  is  a  person  who     ^ 
has  something  important  to  say  about  life^ 
and   has   the   special    gift   of   saying   it   su- 
premely well.     He  must  be  one,  I  think  we 
will  all  admit,  who  has  thought  profoundly 
about  existence.    And  yet  that  is  not  enough 
to  make  him  a  poet,  for  that  is  the  accom- 
plishment of  philosopher  or  scientist.     He 

64 


must  also  feel  deeply  and  strongly  about  life. 
And  yet  that  is  not  enough  to  make  him  a 
poet,  either,  for  many  of  us  feel  much  more 
deeply  and  sincerely  than  we  can  say.  No, 
he  must  not  only  be  able  to  speak  from  a 
great  fund  of  thought  and  knowledge  and 
from  a  great  fund  of  sympathy  and  emotion; 
he  must  be  able  to  speak  with  the  wonderful 
power  of  charm  as  well. 

The  one  quality  which  makes  him  a  poet 
is  his  faculty  of  expression,  of  course;  for  we 
can  all  be  poets  of  silence.  This  particular 
gift  or  talent,  which  determines  whether  a 
man  shall  express  himself  in  words  or  in 
sound  or  in  colours,  who  can  say  by  what 
it  is  in  its  turn  determined?  To  say  that  this 
man  is  a  poet,  and  that  one  a  painter,  is  no 
more  than  to  say  that  one  has  gray  eyes  and 
the  other  black.  But  the  difference  in  char- 
acter, that  is  another  matter;  and  to  be  a 
poet  or  a  painter  implies  being  a  man.  The 
man  behind  the  faculty,  that  is  the  important 
thing. 

65 


The  poet  must  delight  our  senses  with  the 


\ 


\ 


inevitable  beauty  of  his  cadences,  his  diction, 
his  rhythms  —  with  what  is  often  called 
technique;  he  must  enlist  our  sympathy 
through  his  own  strong  and  generous  emo- 
tional nature;  he  must  convince  our  minds 
by  his  own  reasonableness.  He  appeals  to 
our  sense  of  beauty,  but  not  to  that  sense 
alone;  he  appeals  to  our  sense  of  goodness, 
but  not  to  that  sense  alone;  he  appeals  to  our 
sense  of  truth,  but  not  to  that  sense  alone. 
His  appeal  is  to  all  three,  and  to  all  three 
equally. 

\j  The   gift  of  technique,  with   the   poet  as 

with   all   artists,   is  largely  a  matter  of  en- 

( I  dowment.  But  what  he  has  to  say  about 
life  will  depend  on  how  profoundly  he  has 
1  thought  about  it,  and  how  keenly  he  feels 
about  it.  And  unless  a  man  has  shared  in 
our  common  life  in  the  world,  I  cannot  see 
how  his  opinions  can  have  any  great  value, 
or  his  emotional  preferences  any  great  sig- 
nificance.     But    our    common    life    in    the 

66 


world  implies  a  certain  amount  of  work 
with  the  hands,  so  that  the  conclusion  seems 
inevitable,  "  A  man  who  does  no  work  with 
his  hands  cannot  be  a  poet." 

The  argument  is  so  simple.  How  can  I 
talk  to  you  with  any  hope  of  a  common 
understanding,  when  I  only  know  the  facts  at 
second  hand,  while  you  have  actually  ex- 
perienced them,  and  when  I  have  no  caring 
about  them  one  way  or  the  other,  while  to 
you  they  are  matters  of  life  and  death?  The 
idea  that  a  poet  can  ever  be  a  mere  by- 
stander, an  onlooker  at  life,  seems  to  me  too 
palpably  impossible  to  need  refutation.  And 
I  cannot  believe  that  any  great  prophet  or 
poet  ever  trod  the  earth  who  did  not  know 
the  pinch  of  life  at  first  hand,  its  actual 
bleak  necessity,  its  terrible  pathos  and  tre- 
mendous joy,  its  wonderful  yet  elusive  sig- 
nificance. Nor  do  I  believe  that  one  for 
whom  all  the  necessities  and  comforts  and 
luxuries  of  life  have  been  gratuitously  pro- 


67 


8Ctit  IPotttff  Of  atfe 

vided,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  ever 
can  know  these  things. 

In  moments  of  insight,  in  hours  of  con- 
templation, doubtless  the  poet  is  a  bystander, 
as  we  all  may  be  at  times.  But  he  cannot 
be  that  exclusively.  A  man  who  never  halts 
to  look  upon  life  in  questioning  wonder,  is 
no  worse  fitted  to  be  an  artist  than  one  who 
spends  his  whole  time  in  speculation  and 
dreaming.  The  one  has  no  knowledge  save 
experience,  the  other  no  experience  save  in 
theory. 

If  a  man  has  never  driven  a  nail  in  his 
life,  nor  built  a  fire,  nor  turned  a  furrow,  nor 
picked  a  barrel  of  apples,  nor  fetched  home 
the  cows,  nor  pulled  an  oar,  nor  reefed  a 
sail,  nor  saddled  a  horse,  nor  carried  home 
a  bundle  of  groceries  from  town,  nor  weeded 
the  garden,  nor  been  lost  in  the  woods,  nor 
nursed  a  friend,  nor  barked  his  shin,  nor 
been  thankful  for  a  free  lunch,  do  you 
think  it  is  likely  he  will  have  anything  to 


68 


say  to  you  and  me  that  will  be  worth  listen- 
ing to?    I  don't. 

I  should  as  soon  expect  a  child  to  set  a 
broken  bone,  or  tunnel  a  mountain,  or  navi- 
gate a  ship.  Yet  this  is  not  to  disparage  the 
heavenly  wisdom  of  inspiration,  nor  the 
strange  inexplicable  authority  of  conviction. 

The  compelling  necessity  for  exertion  lies 
upon  all  created  things.  And  we  ourselves 
can  only  achieve  life  and  realize  our  indi- 
vidual existence  by  meeting  that  necessity 
hand  to  hand  and  overcoming  it.  In  over- 
coming it  we  become  what  we  are,  whether 
we  be  men  or  whether  we  be  chipmunks. 
The  moment  we  cease  to  overcome  and  rest 
inactively  on  what  we  have  accomplished, 
that  moment  we  begin  to  perish. 

There  is  only  one  way  to  be  a  poet,  by 
sweat  and  heartbreak  and  bitter  weariness 
of  brain.  And  even  then  you  won't  be  a 
poet,  you  will  only  be  a  man,  unless  it  has 
pleased  the  powers  to  bestow  on  you  the 
grace  of  words.     But  when  a  man  has  some 

69 


faculty  of  expression,  begotten  in  him  by 
some  happy  circumstance,  and  then  learns 
the  taste  of  life  and  the  touch  of  it  at  first 
hand,  he  will  have  some  feeling  about  it 
and  some  opinion  on  it  worth  heeding,  and 
poetry  will  come  out  of  him  as  naturally 
as  milk  comes  out  of  a  cocoanut. 

The  genius  of  the  artist  secretes  beauty 
by  some  natural  process,  as  inevitably  as  a 
bee  secretes  honey,  and  gives  it  forth  in 
good  time  for  the  mystification  and  enjoy- 
ment of  the  world.  The  process  itself  is 
hidden  even  from  the  intelligence  that  car- 
ries it  on,  but  the  carrying  on  of  the  process 
is  a  continual  satisfaction.  The  creative 
instinct  of  the  artist,  uneasy  with  the  posses- 
sion of  his  unvented  ideal,  is  akin  to  the 
procreative  instinct  of  the  world,  which 
cannot  rest  until  it  has  attempted  to  realize 
itself  in  ever  fresher,  more  lovely,  and  more 
adequate  forms. 

There  is  another  reason  why  the  poet  can- 
not be  exempt  from  the  common  lot.    Afflu- 

70 


ence  is  not  good  for  artists  for  this  reason; 
affluence  is  not  good  for  anybody  —  perfect 
affluence,  I  mean,  the  amount  of  affluence 
which  relieves  one  permanently  from  all 
need  of  endeavour.  Great  wealth,  or  even  a 
little  wealth,  may  make  people  sleek  and 
self-satisfied  and  fat-minded,  but  it  cannot  of 
itself  make  them  either  beautiful  or  loving, 
nor  give  them  openness  of  mind.  And  since 
artists  are  always  people  with  a  large  and 
vivid  capacity  for  sensuous  enjoyment,  wealth 
is  more  dangerous  to  them  than  to  others. 
It  does  not  hurt  a  miner,  or  a  horse-thief,  or 
a  peddler  to  grow  rich,  for  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  he  does  nbt  know  how  to  enjoy  his 
money  when  he  has  made  it;  he  can  only  go 
on  making  more  and  more,  and  growing  more 
desperate  every  day  at  his  own  incapacity, 
until  finally  he  begins  to  give  it  away  in  mil- 
lions in  sheer  weariness  of  spirit.  But  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  great  prosperity  will  spoil 
a  good  artist;  he  begins  to  be  so  engrossed 
in  enjoyment,  and  he  has  such  a  great  appre- 

71 


ciation  of  the  easy  beauty  of  life,  that  he 
ceases  from  the  strenuous  work  of  creation. 

But,  after  all,  all  this  is  only  one  side  of 
the  question,  and  the  whole  argument  I  have 
made  only  proves  that  the  poet,  and  every 
other  artist,  in  fact,  ought  to  be  and  must 
be  a  normal  man  —  not  an  average  man,  but 
a  normal  man,  with  all  the  best  powers  and 
capacities  of  manhood  in  him.  He  must  be 
capable  of  thought,  capable  of  passion,  capa- 
ble of  manual  labour.  No  one  lacking  in 
these  three  essentials,  or  lacking  in  any  one 
of  them,  can  be  called  a  normal  man;  nor 
can  he  have  anything  valuable  and  great 
to  say  to  us  about  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  modern  life 
is  very  complex  (and,  of  course,  the  more 
complex  it  is  the  more  beautiful  it  may  be 
made),  and  we  all  have  to  specialize  a  good 
deal,  and  it  is  not  possible  for  one  man  to  do 
more  than  one  thing  superlatively  well.  If 
you  would  be  a  great  financier,  a  great 
mechanic,  a  great  statesman,  or  a  great  scien- 

72 


Zftt  IPoet  in  t^t  aromitionUieaUfi 

tist,  or  a  great  engineer,  or  a  great  cook, 
you  must  devote  your  life  to  it,  you  must 
give  your  mind  to  it,  and  your  love  and 
your  industry.  You  may  learn  to  do  many 
things  so  well  that  the  doing  of  them  serves 
to  enlighten  and  enrich  your  specialty;  but 
the  main  issue,  the  focusing-point  and  flower 
of  all  your  effort  and  ability,  must  be  some 
one  thing  that  you  love  most,  know  most,  and 
do  best. 

Now  art  (and  poetry  is  one  of  the  most 
difficult  of  the  fine  arts)  is  just  such  an  occu- 
pation as  these.  You  cannot  always  com- 
pose a  sonnet  over  your  evening  cigar.  Art 
is  not  an  idle  amusement,  it  is  a  natural  phe- 
nomenon, as  significant  as  war,  as  beautiful 
as  the  northern  lights,  and  as  useful  as  elec- 
tricity. Of  all  forms  of  human  activity  it 
is  the  most  exacting,  as  it  is  perhaps  the  most 
delightful.  And  the  demand  which  creative 
output  makes  on  all  the  energies  is  just  as 
great  and  just  as  exhausting  as  that  made  by 
any  other  worthy  occupation  worthily   fol- 

73 


lowed.  If  poetry  were  a  purely  artificial 
pastime,  fit  only  to  engage  the  minds  of 
college  youths  and  schoolgirls,  certainly  it 
would  not  be  worth  our  serious  discussion. 
But  if  it  is  what  history  declares  it  to  be,  the 
voice  of  revelation,  the  finest  utterance  of 
human  wisdom,  the  basis  of  religion,  and  the 
solace  of  sorrowing  mortals,  if  it  teaches  us 
how  to  live,  how  to  be  happy,  how  to  love  the 
right  and  appreciate  the  beautiful  and  per- 
ceive the  true,  ii  it  illumines  the  dark  prob- 
lems of  existence,  and  heartens  us  upon  the 
difficult  path  to  perfection,  then  surely  we 
may  well  consider  how  best  to  foster  it  and 
preserve  it,  and  make  its  influence  prevail 
in  the  commonwealth. 

If  poetry,  therefore,  is  such  a  serious  busi- 
ness, and  worth  the  attention  of  strong  men, 
it  cannot  be  cultivated  as  a  mere  avocation. 
It  will  engage  all  the  energies  of  any  one 
who  follows  it.  So  that,  while  it  seems  to 
me  untrue  to  say  that  a  man  who  works  with 
his   hands   cannot  be   a   poet,   and   while    I 

74 


think  it  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  a  man 
who  does  no  work  with  his  hands  cannot  be 
a  poet,  I  think  it  nearest  the  truth  (at  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century)  to  say 
that  a  man  who  earns  his  living  with  his 
hands  cahnot  be  a  poet.  He  will  not  have 
time.  He  will  not  have  leisure  for  the 
requisite  learning  and  culture;  he  will  not 
be  able  to  know  even  the  rudiments  of  sci- 
ence and  philosophy  and  social  economics; 
he  will  not  have  leisure  to  know  the  pleas- 
ures of  aesthetic  enjoyment;  he  cannot  be  a 
lover  of  nature,  nor  a  lover  of  books,  nor  a 
lover  of  many  things  lovely. 

Why?  Because  under  existing  social  and 
industrial  conditions  he  cannot  be  the  mas- 
ter of  his  own  time.  And  while  the  normal 
man  must  have  enough  physical  work  to 
keep  him  in  perfect  health,  the  average 
man  has  enough  to  ruin  his  health  and  sicken 
his  soul.  The  whole  question  of  art  rests 
on  the  social  and  industrial  problems.  The 
fine  arts  are  closely  related  to  the  industrial 

75 


Zi^t  ilonrfi  of  iLHt 

arts.  And  at  present  we  can  have  no  wide- 
spread national  interest  in  the  fine  arts,  be- 
cause we  have  no  national  industrial  arts. 
The  industrial  arts  of  a  people,  like  the  fine 
arts,  can  only  be  carried  on  by  men  who  are 
free  and  honest  and  intelligent,  and  there- 
fore happy.  For  it  is  quite  true,  as  William 
Morris  said,  that  art  is  the  expression  of 
man's  pleasure  in  his  work.  But  the  men 
who  engage  in  our  industries  to-day  cannot 
have  any  pleasure  in  their  work.  For  our 
industrial  arts  —  or,  rather,  our  industries 
and  manufactures  which  ought  to  be  indus- 
trial arts  —  are  carried  on  by  two  classes  of 
people,  the  workmen  and  the  capitalists. 
And  all  workmen,  under  modern  industrial 
conditions,  are  the  slaves  of  their  employers; 
while  capitalists,  however  generous  their 
impulses,  are  of  necessity  slave-owners.  Of 
course  the  workmen  do  not  know  that  they 
are  slaves,  and  the  capitalists  do  not  know 
they  are  slave-owners.  But  that  does  not 
make  the  matter  any  better  —  it  only  plunges 

76 


^Tfie  poet  in  tftt  eominonUje^Uf) 

both  in  a  sea  of  confusion,  as  the  blind  migfit 
stumble  in  fighting  with  the  blind.  The 
workman  thinks  he  is  free,  because  if  he  does 
not  like  one  owner  he  can  sell  himself  to 
another.  And  the  capitalist  thinks  he  is 
honest  because  he  plays  fairly  according  to 
the  rules  of  the  game.  But  the  principles  of 
the  game  are  fundamentally  rotten,  since 
shrewdness  of  mind  does  not  make  right 
any  more  than  might  of  muscle  does. 

The  first  question,  however,  is  not  whether 
a  poet  should  live  by  the  work  of  his  hands, 
but  whether  he  should  live  at  all.  And, 
however  much  we  may  obscure  and  injure 
the  splendid  significance  of  poetry  with  our 
incessant  and  ineffectual  sophistries  of  a  day, 
I  must  believe  that  the  world's  need  for  great 
and  fearless  poetry  is  perpetual,  and  that 
without  its  illuminating  aid  we  shall  never 
come  near  to  accomplishing  our  destiny. 


77 


There  is  such  incongruity  between  our 
traditional  idea  of  the  poet  and  our  daily 
experience  of  modern  life  that  we  can  hardly 
reconcile  the  two;  and  our  conception  of  the 
poet  in  modern  life  is  pretty  sure,  for  that 
reason,  to  be  either  comic  or  tragic.  He  will 
seem  to  us  anything  but  commonplace,  and 
we  cannot  take  him  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  typical  poet  is  out  of  date;  and  the 
poet  of  the  times  is  slow  to  arrive,  since  the 
time  itself  is  scarcely  ripe  for  his  appear- 
ance. If  we  are  to  think  justly  of  the  poet 
in  modern  life,  however,  we  must  be  careful 
not  to  overvalue  his  office  on  the  one  hand, 

78 


Zfft  mtt  in  Morttvn  mu 

nor  on  the  other  to  depreciate  the  worth  and 
significance  of  the  age.  And  the  greater  our 
love  of  poetry,  our  sympathy  with  ideals, 
our  feeling  for  beauty,  the  more  shall  we  be 
in  danger  of  undervaluing  our  own  day 
when  thtse  things  are  not  paramount  in 
men's  minds.  Let  us  try  to  look  at  the  ques- 
tion quite  fairly,  neither  embittered  by  the 
facts  nor  led  astray  by  impossible  fancies. 

The  poet,  if  we  attempt  to  form  a  com- 
posite photograph  of  him  from  impressions 
gathered  here  and  there  through  the  pages 
of  history,  is  for  the  most  part  a  serious 
figure,  nearly  always  aloof  from  the  affairs 
of  earth,  somewhat  shy  of  life  and  its  activi- 
ties, and  dealing  more  in  d^-eams  than  in 
realities.  But  to  be  more  precise,  as  we  think 
of  the  long  list  of  poets  whose  names  still 
survive,  whose  words  still  are  alive  in  our 
ears,  we  shall  find  them  dividing  them- 
selves mainly  into  two  groups,  —  the  relig- 
ious poets  and  the  dramatic  poets,  —  those 
who  were  inspired  by  the  moral  temper  of 

79 


their  time,  and  those  who  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  entertainment  of  their  fellows. 
The  poet  is  both  prophet  and  entertainer, 
both  priest  and  artist.  He  stands  for  ever  the 
interpreter  of  nature  to  men;  that  is  his 
sacerdotal  office.  He  is  also  the  revealer  of 
men  to  themselves;  that  is  his  business  as  a 
dramatic  artist. 

David,  Isaiah,  Job,  Dante,  Milton,  Shel- 
ley, Wordsworth,  Emerson,  —  these  are  types 
of  the  poet  as  prophet  or  priest  of  nature. 
They  "  saw  life  steadily  and  saw  it  whole," 
but  in  their  heart  there  burned  for  ever  a 
passion  for  righteousness  never  to  be  satis- 
fied by  things  as  they  are.  They  were  for 
ever  stirred  by  a  divine  unrest;  the  fever  of 
God  throbbed  in  their  veins;  they  could 
never  suffer  fools  gladly,  nor  look  with 
equanimity  upon  the  sorry  spectacle  of 
human  weakness.  They  were  lean  men  and 
laughed  little.  Possessed  continually  by  a 
consuming  love  of  the  beautiful,  the  true, 
and   the   good,   and   beholding  at  the  same 

80 


ffiJie  ^ott  in  MoHtvn  %iU 

time  how  life  seems  to  be  inseparable  from 
ugliness  and  evil,  they  could  never  attain  the 
ruddy  and  placid  contentment  of  the  born 
comedian.  The  pageant  of  human  en- 
deavour, the  interplay  of  human  character, 
so  engrossing  to  many,  was  to  them  only  the 
surface  and  appearance  of  the  world.  They 
were  for  ever  haunted  by  a  sense  of  the 
presence  behind  the  mask,  the  spirit  behind 
the  semblance.  To  their  endless  unhappi- 
ness,  one  must  believe,  they  were  driven 
forward  by  an  insuperable  curiosity  for  the 
truth  about  life,  an  unassuageable  love  of 
the  beauty  of  earth,  and  above  all  by  a  pure 
and  impossible  desire  to  make  actual  those 
ideal  conditions  of  conduct  and  circumstance 
which  never  yet  have  been  realized  by  man, 
nor  will  ever  leave  him  at  peace  in  medi- 
ocrity. 

As  long  as  the  stars  remain  and  the  soul     / 
of  man  fleets  with  the  breath  of  his  body,  so 
long  must  he   suffer   this   bitter   divergence 
between  "  I  would  "  and  "  I  can."     To  the 

8i 


©He  ^ottvs  of  %ift 

great  poets  of  nature  this  realization  has 
come  as  an  overwhelming  influence,  a  bur- 
den of  knowledge  almost  insupportable. 
They  could  hardly  be  other  than  grave, 
impressive,  unostentatious,  simple,  single 
of  purpose,  strenuous  in  endeavour,  and 
modest  from  the  very  abundance  of  their 
wisdom.  So  great  must  have  been  their 
ideality,  so  keen  their  inward  vision,  it  is 
little  wonder  if  at  times  they  failed  in  joy- 
ousness  and  permitted  a  minor  strain  to 
sound  through  their  messages  of  encourage- 
ment to  men.  Thus  it  is  that  not  all  poets 
have  been  prophets  of  gladness,  but  sorrow 
and  uncertainty  had  their  messengers,  too. 
For  the  life  of  man,  which  is  so  large  a  part 
of  the  poetry  of  earth,  must  be  given  com- 
plete expression  in  beautiful  words;  and  the 
dominant  note  of  triumphant  joy  must  have 
its  undertone  of  grievous  doubt.  Through 
the  glad  supreme  assurance  of  large  faith 
and  unconquerable  achievement,  the  broken- 
hearted wistfulness  of  failure  must  be  heard; 

82 


®ifte  ^ott  in  JWolretn  %iU 

else  were  our  poetry  imperfect,  and  half  of 
humanity  left  without  a  voice.  Moreover, 
those  deep  consolations  and  counsels  which  it 
is  the  business  of  art  and  poetry  to  furnish, 
can  scarcely  be  rendered  effectively  without 
the  profoundest  sympathy  with  suffering. 
The  royal  psalmist,  on  whom  so  many  thou- 
sands have  leaned  for  spiritual  support,  must 
have  tasted  the  bitter  waters  of  affliction,  to 
be  able  to  reach  the  hearts  of  men  so  surely. 
Now,  such  a  conception  of  the  poet  in  his 
capacity  as  interpreter  of  nature  and  the 
deeper  moods  of  the  mind,  is  evidently  not 
the  broadest  one.  When  we  think  of  Homer 
and  Virgil  and  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare, 
and  the  writers  of  the  Greek  Anthology,  we 
think  of  the  poet  in  a  very  different  char- 
acter. He  is  no  longer  the  seer  labouring 
under  the  stress  of  an  almost  Orphic  inspira- 
tion; he  is  the  open-eyed,  glad-hearted  be- 
holder and  recorder  of  life  as  he  sees  it.  The 
God  has  breathed  upon  him,  indeed,  giving 
him  greater  insight  into  the   foibles  of  his 

83 


Sifte  iPoettrfi  of  Hlft 

fellows  than  most  men  enjoy,  and  yet  has  not 
wholly  rapt  him  out  of  himself.  He  is  hu- 
man, comfortable,  friendly,  merry,  and  con- 
tent, a  lover  of  wine  and  leisure  and 
laughter.  He  is  a  lover  of  beauty,  indeed, 
but  his  keen  satisfaction  in  the  loveliness  of 
nature  is  not  marred  by  the  ever  present  sense 
of  incompleteness,  which  must  always  haunt 
the  preeminent  poet  of  nature.  The  one 
finds  the  answer  to  his  questions  in  a  shrewd 
analysis  of  human  motives  and  purposes.  To 
the  questions  of  the  other,  hearkening  per- 
petually for  some  hinted  solution  of  the 
riddle  of  existence,  there  is  no  answer  possi- 
ble. Small  wonder,  then,  that  the  type  of  the 
first  should  be  the  jovial  Horace  or  the 
genial  Chaucer,  while  the  type  of  the  second 
blends  something  of  the  austerity  of  Dante 
with  the  zeal  of  David. 

Now  human  life,  when  all  is  said,  is  not 
so  very  different  in  ancient  and  modern 
days.  Barbarism  or  civilization,  city  or 
wilderness,  the  conditions  vary,  but  the  prime 

84 


ffiHe  ^ott  in  JWolrern  mtt 

facts  of  life  remain,  and  it  is  with  these  that 
the  poet  deals. 

In  modern  life,  as  in  that  of  old  time, 
there  are  the  matters  of  love  and  war,  friend-  / 
ship  and  hatred,  joy  in  the  senses,  sorrow,  '^ 
bereavement,  loneliness,  faith,  disquietude, 
and  death;  the  elemental  facts  from  which 
the  fabric  of  the  universe  is  built,  and  the 
elemental  passions  and  cravings  with  which 
we  confront  them.  The  poetry  of  the  Old 
Testament,  of  Homer,  or  of  Virgil,  does  not 
seem  antiquated,  except  in  occasional  detail 
of  local  colour.  The  lament  of  David  for 
Absalom,  the  mighty  verses  of  many  chap- 
ters of  Job  and  Isaiah,  the  pathetic  parting 
of  Hector  and  Andromache,  Virgil's  de- 
scription of  the  bees  or  the  shadows  on  the 
mountainside,  are  as  fresh  as  if  they  had  been 
written  yesterday. 

This  perennial  vigour,  this  power  to  sur-      ^ 
vive  the  change  of  fashion  and  the  flight  of   , 
years,  is  a  test  of  poetry  which  most  of  our  -\ 
modern  verse  would  be  pitifully  unable  to 

85 


Ei^t  ^ottvs!  of  Hift 

fulfil,  and  which  the  best  of  it  will  still  have 
to  face.  All  that  is  whimsical,  fantastic,  gro- 
tesque, of  purely  contemporary  value,  will 
gradually  be  forgotten  and  cut  away,  while 
a  few  splendid  lyrics,  a  few  noble  passages, 
we  may  imagine,  will  be  jealously  preserved 
and  handed  on  as  part  of  our  bequest  to  the 
future.  ^  Men  will  not  care  to  perpetuate 
what  is  essentially  modern  in  our  work,  but 
r  rather  what  is  essentially  human,  essentially 
poetic,  essentially  beautiful.  In  the  long 
run  only  the  fair  and  noble  survives,  whether 
in  art  or  life,  for  the  reheartening  and  re- 
generating of  the  earth.  So  it  happens  that 
all  great  literature  that  has  come  down  to 
us  is  infused  with  a  simple  dignity  of  spirit, 
a  majestic  and  pure  sincerity,  which  seem 
for  the  time  quite  beyond  the  reach  of  our 
own  accomplishment.  Yet  we  may  be  sure 
our  ambitious  attempts,  with  all  their  clever- 
ness, all  their  novelty,  all  their  exact  faith- 
fulness to  nature,  will  be  wanting  in  vitality, 
in  permanent  interest,  if  we  do  not  succeed 

86 


Sfie  J^oet  in  Jttotrern  mu 

in    giving    them    just    these    spiritual    quali- 
ties. 

The  spirit  of  the  world  is  eager  but  inex- 
orable, always  in  need  of  new  thought,  new 
beauty,  new  funds  of  emotion,  and  yet  ruth-^^ 
lessly  discarding  everything  which  does  not 
help  it  forward  on  the  long,  arduous  prog-"^ 
ress  of  the  centuries.  The  ages  to  come  will 
care  no  more  for  our  popular  airs  and  songs 
and  paintings  than  we  care  for  those  of  van- 
ished civilizations.  But  whenever  the  human 
spirit,  under  a  stress  of  intense  feeling,  and 
in  the  face  of  the  inescapable  difficulty  or 
bitterness  or  joy  of  life,  rises  to  impassioned  ^ 
utterance,  that  utterance,  however  slight,  is 
likely  to  be  worth  saving.  This  rule  is  un- 
alterable, and  obtains  for  modern  poetry  as 
for  the  most  ancient.  No  art  can  outlive 
its  own  time  which  does  not  rise  above  the 
commonplace;  and  any  art  which  rises  suffi- 
ciently far  above  the  average  of  contempo- 
rary achievement  is  sure  to  be  treasured. 

This,  however,  is  only  one  way  of  looking 

87 


at  the  matter.  There  is  much  very  excel- 
lent art  and  poetry  produced  by  every 
people,  which  is  not  great,  and  which  has 
fulfilled  its  function  when  it  has  been  re- 
membered for  a  year  or  two,  or  for  a  gener- 
ation or  two,  to  give  pleasure  and  encour- 
agement to  thousands  to  whom  any  more 
perfect  or  profound  work  would  not  appeal 
at  all.  No  work  is  to  be  condemned  simply 
because  it  is  not  of  the  first  rank.  Even  if 
we  have  no  great  artists,  it  is  good  to  have  "1 
an  interest  in  art,  to  have  a  number  of  men 
giving  their  energy  to  keep  alive  a  great 
tradition,  until  a  more  favourable  season. 
And  one  demands  of  them  only  a  modest 
sincerity. 

It  is  not  my  aim  in  the  present  paper  to 
attempt  any  inquiry  into  the  purposes  of 
poetry.  But  in  considering  the  relation  of 
the  poet  to  modern  life,  one  necessarily  takes 
for  granted  certain  requirements  of  the 
poetic  art,  consciously  or  not.  The  business 
of  poetry  among  the  fine  arts  of  expression, 

88 


Zftt  poet  (n  iWolretn  llffe 

as  it  appears  to  me,  is  threefold.  It  must 
offer  us  some  delightful  counterfeit  likeness 
of  life  for  our  entertainment;  it  must  sat-  . 
isfy  our  intellectual  need  for  truth;  and  p 
finally  it  must  supply  us  with  spiritual  re- 
inforcement and  consolation.  We  look  to 
the  fine  arts  in  general  to  give  us  a  refined 
pleasure  of  the  senses,  to  answer  the  ques- 
tions of  our  restless  curiosity,  and  to  inten- 
sify and  ennoble  our  emotional  life.  We 
demand  all  these  things  of  poetry.  We  ask 
that  it  shall  have  captivating  beauty  of  form, 
that  it  shall  be  consistent  with  the  most  ad- 
vanced discoveries  of  modern  thought  and 
modern  science,  and  that  it  shall  supply  us 
with  adequate  standards  and  tests  of  conduct. 
We  must  ask  modern  poetry,  therefore, 
what  it  has  to  say  on  every  topic  of  prime 
importance  which  bears  upon  life.  We  must 
expect  it  to  embody  for  us  all  the  new  and 
wonderful  revelations  of  modern  science, 
discarding  those  old  conceptions  of  the  uni- 
verse,   however    time-honoured    and    pictur- 

89 


esque,  which  recent  knowledge  has  proved 
erroneous.  It  is  not  easy  for  poetry  to  do  this 
all  at  once,  yet  do  it  it  must,  if  the  restless 
mind  of  man  is  to  be  satisfied.  It  is  only 
a  poet  of  exceptional  power  who  can  see  the 
poetry  in  modern  life,  its  inventions,  its  dis- 
coveries, its  ceaseless  and  venturesome  activi- 
ties, and  give  that  poetic  aspect  adequate 
expression  in  words.  The  poet,  particularly 
the  modern  poet,  must  have  the  unprejudiced 
eye  and  the  exuberant  spirits  of  a  child,  or  he 
will  not  see  the  world  for  himself,  and  love  it 
as  it  should  be  loved.  Unless  he  sees  clearly, 
loves  intensely,  and  reasons  profoundly,  his 
poems  can  take  no  lasting  hold  upon  us,  how- 
ever ornate  or  daring  they  may  be. 

To  produce  the  best  results  in  poetry,  or 
in  any  art,  then,  the  artist  must  be  endowed 
with  the  alert,  observing  eye,  the  questing, 
unswervable  mind,  and  a  temperament  at 
once  ardent,  kindly,  and  above  satiety  or  cor- 
ruption. He  must  love  his  age  and  under- 
stand it,   in  order  to   represent  it  justly  or 

90 


convert  it  to  his  way.  This  he  can  hardly 
do,  if  he  feels  himself  out  of  sympathy  with 
its  ideals  and  pursuits.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  actual  world  of  things  as  they  are  can 
never  seem  quite  adequate  to  the  idealist. 
There  is  no  man  so  uninspired  as  to  be  con- 
tented all  the  time.  There  will  come  to  him 
hours  of  divine  dissatisfaction,  when  noth- 
ing short  of  perfection  will  seem  sufficient. 
Out  of  the  wistfulness  and  disquiet  of  such 
moments  the  creative  impulse  may  arise  with 
its  passionate  longing  for  beauty,  and  give 
vent  to  that  longing  in  imperishable  forms 
of  art;  and  these  creations  in  colours,  in 
sounds,  in  magical  words,  remain  to  con- 
vict the  actual  world  of  its  shortcomings, 
and  stimulate  it  to  fairer  endeavour. 

Having  in  mind  the  opportunity  always 
presented  to  poetry,  what  shall  we  say  of 
its  condition  and  scope  to-day?  What  of 
the  poet  in  modern  life?  Is  it  a  time  likely 
to  be  favourable  for  the  production  of  great 
poetry?    And  have  we  any  need  of  the  poet 

91 


with  his  visions?  Let  us  admit,  what  seems 
to  be  the  truth,  that  there  probably  never 
was  a  time  when  poetry  was  held  in  less 
esteem  than  at  present.  Why  is  this?  We 
have  wealth,  we  have  leisure,  we  have  great 
prosperity,  we  have  peace,  we  have  wide- 
spread intelligence,  we  have  freedom  of 
thought  and  conscience.  All  these  things,  it 
has  always  been  supposed,  go  to  make  up  a 
state  of  society  in  which  the  fine  arts  can 
flourish.  Why  do  they  not  flourish  here 
and  now?  Why  have  we  no  poets  whose 
ability  and  influence  are  of  national  concern? 
Because,  with  all  our  comforts,  all  our 
delightful  luxuries,  all  our  intellectual  alert- 
ness, we  are  steadily  losing  our  moral  ideas, 
steadily  suffering  a  spiritual  deterioration. 
Anglo-Saxon  civilization,  to  speak  of  no 
other,  has  become  a  humiliating  and  un- 
scrupulous game.  Our  fathers  and  grand- 
fathers cared  for  many  ideals,  for  honour, 
for  honesty,  for  patriotism,  for  culture,  for 
high  breeding,  for  nobility  of  character  and 

92 


Si^e  mtt  in  morttvn  JLlft 

unselfishness  of  purpose.  We  care  for  none 
of  these  things.  They  have  gone  out  of 
fashion.  We  care  only  for  wealth,  and  re-  \  ^  ,  ^ 
spect  only  those  relentless  and  barbarous 
traits  of  character  by  which  it  is  attained. 
That  the  ideal  state  must  be  established  on 
material  prosperity  is  quite  true.  But  that 
we  should  permit  ourselves  to  rest  satisfied 
with  such  prosperity,  and  even  become  en- 
grossed by  it,  is  fatal.  All  that  Western 
civilization  has  done  in  the  past  thousand 
years  to  make  life  more  secure  and  pleas- 
ant and  comfortable,  has  been  done  under 
the  impulse  of  worthy  ideals  and  humane 
inspirations.  Now,  having  attained  so  com- 
plete a  control  of  all  the  machinery  of  living, 
we  seem  in  danger  of  losing  what  is  best  in 
life  itself.  Modern  life,  with  its  ambitions 
and  triumphs,  may  seem  a  very  comfortable 
and  delightful  period  to  be  alive  in,  with  its 
immense  labour-saving  facilities  and  its  many 
diversions.  One  does  not  wonder  that  people 
give  themselves  so  unsparingly  to  the  secur- 

93 


2CJ|t  J|oetv»  of  mtt 

ing  of  those  diversions  and  luxuries.  Yet, 
from  another  view-point,  one  cannot  but  be 
amazed  at  the  short-sightedness  of  men  which 
allows  them  to  spend  laborious  lives  in 
preparing  to  live.  One  cannot  but  recognize 
the  shameless  materialism  of  the  age,  its 
brutal  selfishness,  ignoble  avarice,  and  utter 
disregard  of  all  the  generous  ideals  of  the 
spirit.  We  have  gained  the  whole  world, 
but  in  doing  it  we  have  lost  our  own  soul. 

Here  is  the  theme  for  the  modern  poet. 
He  is  to  bring  back  inspiration  to  our  un- 
illumined  days.  He  is  to  show  us  how  to 
regain  our  spiritual  manhood.  He  is  to 
show  us  how  to  make  use  of  our  wealth,  how 
to  turn  our  immense  resources  to  some  rea- 
sonable account.  He  must  not  be  a  mere 
detractor  of  his  time,  peevish  and  sour.  He 
must  love  his  age,  with  all  its  immense  folly 
and  pitiable  sordidness;  and  because  of  his 
love  and  sympathy  he  must  desire  to  re- 
establish for  it  those  moral  ideals  which  it 
has  lost. 

94 


Sije  ^ott  in  MoX^tvn  Hitt 

The  latter  half  of  the  past  century  had, 
in  William  Morris,  a  poet  in  many  ways 
typical  of  the  modern  artist;  he  loved  beauty 
and  hated  iniquity  with  so  hearty  a  good- 
will that  he  could  see  nothing  good  in  his 
own  age.  He  found  nothing  in  it  to  love, 
and  much  to  detest.  That  was  his  great  mis- 
fortune. It  drove  him  too  far  away  from 
us.  It  made  him  little  better  than  a  medi- 
aeval visitor  among  us.  We  may  be  keenly 
aware  of  the  modern  lack  of  ideals,  but  we 
must  not  forget  the  immeasurable  service 
which  modern  science  has  rendered  the 
world.  In  the  sphere  of  knowledge,  in  the 
liberation  of  the  human  mind,  no  century  has 
been  more  remarkable  than  the  nineteenth. 
This  is  no  small  matter;  it  is  a  very  great 
glory  indeed.  But  it  did  not  seem  to  be  of 
any  significance  to  William  Morris.  So  far 
as  his  conception  of  the  ideal  life  was  con- 
cerned, we  might  as  well  have  been  living 
in  the  age  of  Pericles  or  Theocritus.  A  man 
who  cares  no  more  than  that  for  the  greatest 

95 


achievement  of  his  time,  can  hardly  hope 
to  address  it  with  authority.  His  noblest 
ideals  must  always  seem  to  it  somewhat 
quixotic  and  ineffective. 

Of  the  two  great  Victorians,  Tennyson  and 
Browning,  the  one  brooded  upon  modern 
life,  yet  held  himself  aloof  from  participat- 
ing in  it;  while  the  other  loved  it  well  and 
partook  of  its  good  things,  without  attempt- 
ing to  address  himself  directly  to  its  needs. 
It  was  the  figure  of  Tennyson  which  satisfied 
the  popular  notion  of  the  poet  in  majestic 
calm,  undistracted  by  temporal  affairs.  And 
to  the  mind  of  Tennyson  all  our  spiritual 
difficulties  and  doubts  appealed;  all  the 
movements  of  his  time  were  reflected  in  his 
work.  Browning,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
beset  by  no  such  difficulties.  His  themes 
were  uninfluenced  by  the  tenor  of  his  time. 
The  problems  of  the  human  spirit  which 
confronted  him  and  engrossed  his  thought 
were  elemental  and  eternal.  Perhaps  for 
that  very  reason  he  could  throw  himself  into 

96 


STDe  ^ott  in  MoX^tvn  mu 

the  enjoyment  of  life  with  such  unquestion- 
ing zest. 

Of  the  other  two  poets  of  the  later  Vic- 
torian period,  Rossetti  and  Arnold,  one  was 
a  recluse,  and  belonged  to  no  age,  while  the 
other  belonged  so  exclusively  to  his  age  that 
his  time  was  never  his  own.  Though  Rossetti 
lived  in  our  own  day,  there  is  no  touch  of 
modernity  in  his  work.  And  Arnold,  who 
comprehended  his  age  so  well,  was  denied 
the  leisure  which  poetry  demands.  V 

The  poet  in  modern  life,  if  one  may  in- 
dulge the  fancy  for  creating  an  almost  im- 
possible figure,  would  have  some  of  the 
characteristics  of  all  these  men.  He  should 
have  all  of  Matthew  Arnold's  insight  into 
the  trend  of  social  events,  all  of  the  sympathy 
of  William  Morris,  all  of  the  large  poise 
and  self-possession  of  Tennyson.  Most  of  all, 
perhaps,  he  would  resemble  Browning  in 
philosophic  power  combined  with  a  vigorous 
love  of  life. 

Among  poets  more  strictly  contemporary 
97 


a;j|e  Jloettff  of  aiff 

than  these,  there  are  two  of  marked  popu- 
larity and  preeminent  achievement,  whose 
position  entitles  them  to  be  considered  more 
or  less  typical  in  modern  life.  Mr.  Rudyard 
Kipling  and  Mr.  James  Whitcomb  Riley 
are  perhaps  the  only  English-speaking  poets 
of  the  day  who  can  command  a  respectful 
hearing.  Others  may  be  listened  to  by  a  few 
hundred  admirers,  but  these  men,  when  they 
speak,  address  an  attentive  audience,  com- 
mensurate with  their  brilliant  powers.  They 
are  not  only  read,  but  beloved;  and  their 
influence  is  undoubted.  And  our  ideal 
modern  poet,  when  he  makes  his  appearance, 
if  he  is  to  inherit  some  of  the  traits  of  the 
greater  Victorians,  should  also  possess  some 
of  the  qualities  of  our  distinguished  friends 
who  have  written  "  The  Seven  Seas "  and 
"  Poems  Here  at  Home."  He  should  have 
Mr.  Kipling's  capacity  for  perceiving  ro- 
mance in  the  midst  of  the  seemingly  com- 
monplace, and  Mr.  Riley's  untarnished 
spirit  of  kindliness  toward  this  great,  foolish, 

98 


ffi^e  Poet  in  JWoirern  ll(fe 

distracted  world.  He  would  be  tolerant  and 
intensely  human  as  they  are,  he  would  love 
his  age,  as  they  do,  but,  at  the  same  time,  if 
such  a  thilig  were  not  impossible,  he  would 
be  horrified  at  the  consuming  greed  which 
is  the  ruling  passion  in  modern  life,  and 
he  would  be  unconquerably  possessed  by  a 
love  of  justice  and  goodness  nowhere  para- 
mount in  the  poetry  of  the  day. 

Meanwhile,  our  modern  bard,  of  whom 
we  expect  so  many  impossible  virtues,  will 
not  have  a  very  encouraging  progress  toward 
recognition.  If  he  have  means  at  his  dis- 
posal, he  will  have  to  face  the  many  dis- 
tractions which  modern  society  can  make 
so  alluring;  and  if  he  have  none,  he  will 
have  to  face  the  still  less  desirable  fate  of 
slow  starvation.  For  no  man  can  serve  two 
mistresses,  and  the  muse  will  not  tolerate  a 
rival  near  the  throne.  Her  devotee  must 
offer  her  a  single-hearted  service,  and  be  con- 
tent with  a  hod-carrier's  wage.  He  will  have 
a  taste  for  good  books,  good  pictures,  good 

99 


©tie  ^oetts  of  aife 

music,  and  all  the  charming  refinements  of 
the  modern  world,  and  yet  he  must  be  satis- 
fied to  enjoy  them  only  in  the  homes  of 
others.  He  will  need  all  the  fortitude  and 
cheerfulness  of  the  poor.  Indeed,  he  will 
need  more  of  those  admirable  qualities  than 
the  poor  possess,  since  his  appreciation  of 
all  that  is  beautiful  and  elegant  in  life  is 
so  much  keener  and  more  profound  than 
theirs. 

It  may  be  contended  that  the  finest  achieve- 
ments of  art  are  born  of  discouragement  and 
privation,  but  I  must  believe  there  is  a  limit 
to  the  beneficial  influence  of  these  severe 
conditions.  A  modicum  of  discouragement, 
a  few  years  of  privation,  are  probably  whole- 
some and  tonic  to  the  artistic  temper.  A 
lifetime  of  them  seems  more  than  is  neces- 
sary. And  we  are  always  in  danger  of 
having  genius  perish  at  our  doors.  How- 
ever, perhaps  it  is  better  that  one  genius 
should  perish  than  that  a  hundred  mediocre 


lOO 


cue  mtt  in  Jttoiretn  mu 

sentimentalists    should    fill    the    world    with 
babbling. 

But  we  must  not  leave  our  subject  with  so 
discouraging  and  petulant  a  thought.  In  all 
that  I  have  said  I  have  had  in  mind  only  the 
more  serious  aspects  of  poetry;  but  it  is  for 
ever  to  be  remembered  that  the  fine  arts 
were  born  from  sheer  exuberance  of  spirits, 
and  can  never  flourish  long  in  any  dolorous 
mood.  They  are  analogous  to  the  play  of 
animals  and  children;  they  indicate  excess 
of  happiness  and  effervescence  of  life;  they 
mean  always  that  some  mortal  had  more  joy 
than  he  could  hold,  and  must  find  vent  for  it 
in  expression.  The  fine  arts  are  quite  super- 
fluous in  any  scheme  of  life  which  looks  only 
to  the  maintenance  of  a  bare  subsistence; 
they  could  never  spring  from  a  condition  of 
bleak,  unmitigated  slavery.  There  must  be 
some  elasticity  of  spirit,  some  freedom  of 
mind  and  action,  to  support  them.  They 
must,  in  truth,  echo  the  sorrows  of  the  world; 
but  far  more  must  they  embody  its  gladness, 

lOI 


its  strength,  its  loveliness,  its  confident  and 
careless  manhood. 

If  the  modern  artist  cannot  have  a  good 
time  living,  he  had  better  go  out  of  business; 
success  in  art  is  not  for  him.  If  the  modern 
r  poet  cannot  find  a  way  to  take  life  gaily,  re- 
sourcefully, unquerulously,  he  had  better 
quench  his  songs.  He  must  be  poor-spirited, 
indeed,  if,  in  a  time  like  this,  so  full  of 
generosity,  of  confidence,  of  elation,  he  can- 
not find  something  to  be  happy  about.  He 
may  have  some  difficulty  in  meeting  his 
obligations,  but  he  should  certainly  be  able 
to  present  a  gentle  and  cheerful  manliness 
to  the  world,  and  manage  to  participate  in  its 
gaiety.  He  must  not  be  less  a  man  than  his 
struggling  fellows,  but  more.  He  must 
not  be  abashed  or  envious  at  any  overabun- 
dance of  worldly  splendour,  but  exhibit  a 
keen  enjoyment  of  beauty  and  elegance  and 
leisure,  such  as  very  few  of  our  magnificent 
moderns  can  attain.  He  may  sometimes 
think  life  is   difficult,   and   poetry  the  most 

I02 


Ciie  mtt  in  montvn  mxt 

thankless  of  all  pursuits;  but  he  must  still 
be  glad  to  be  alive,  or  no  one  will  care 
whether  he  lives  or  not.  Above  all,  he  must 
see  to  it  that  no  drop  of  the  poison  of  ennui 
finds  its  way  into  his  work.  He  must  be  so 
loyal  to  his  beautiful  art,  that  he  will  gladly 
keep  it  unimpaired  by  any  chance  misfor- 
tune of  his  own.  However  like  a  failure  his 
own  career  may  seem  to  him;  however  utterly 
he  may  lose  at  times  the  wholesome  appetite 
for  life,  the  longing  for  wisdom  and  beauty, 
the  zest  for  achievement;  however  his  spirit 
and  flesh  may  fail  before  the  mighty  and 
inexorable  enigma,  he  will  still  bear  himself 
with  courage  before  others,  and  look  forth 
upon  the  confused  concourse  of  life  with 
an  uncraven  mind.  So  doing,  he  will  utter 
no  word  of  personal  plaint,  but  carefully 
guard  his  poetry  from  the  note  of  dejection. 
For  he  will  perceive  that  his  art  is  greater 
than  himself,  and  scrupulously  embody  in  his 
work  only  his  gladsome  and  encouraging 
experiences,  letting  his  darker  hours  perish 
\  103 


unrecorded.  However  bitter  existence  may 
taste  to  him  personally,  he  surely  cannot 
help  seeing  that  in  the  long  run,  in  the  large 
account,  life  as  a  whole  is  desirable,  and  art 
as  a  whole  is  the  reflection  of  its  goodly  joy. 


104 


Srje  defence  of  ©oetrg 


There  have  been  many  volumes  written  in 
defence  of  poetry,  and  every  little  while  some 
fresh  champion  springs  to  its  rescue  with  a 
diligent  apology.  But  that  raises  the  pre- 
vious question,  Why  should  poetry  need 
any  defence? 

Has  it  survived  until  now,  only  to  perish 
in  the  latter  days  of  the  world  of  neglect  and 
inattention?  It  has  always  had  defenders; 
it  has  always  seemed  to  need  apologists ;  and 
yet  it  does  subsist.  The  truth  is,  one  may  say 
that  poetry  is  the  voice  of  the  better  self,  and 
always  needs  to  be  defended  from  the  less 
fortunate  toiling  self,  who  must  bear  the 
brunt  of  life,  and  sometimes  grows  cynical 
under  the  strain.     That  part  of  us  which 

105 


8Cf)e  Jloetts  of  mtt 

has  to  go  to  the  office  or  the  field,  which  must 
drive  an  axe  or  a  pen  all  day  to  wrest  a 
living  from  the  clutch  of  nature,  is  not  apt 
to  be  overtolerant  of  leisure  and  contempla- 
tion and  the  delights  of  the  fine  arts. 

To  become  engrossed  in  the  necessary 
pursuits  of  average  existence,  is  to  lose 
patience  and  sympathy  with  the  finer  appre- 
ciation of  the  poetry  of  life;  and  yet  the 
wise  man  will  be  able  to  give  his  strength 
to  strenuous  service  in  practical  affairs,  will 
be  a  constant  benefactor  to  his  fellows  in 
eminently  substantial  ways,  will  efficiently 
put  his  shoulder  to  the  muddy  wheel,  while 
he  is  at  the  same  time  accumulating  a  re- 
serve-fund of  refreshing  enthusiasm  for  the 
poetry  of  life  as  he  sees  it.  No  wise  man  is 
a  scoffer,  nor  a  disbeliever  in  the  beautiful. 
This  is  true  among  all  kinds  of  men,  whether 
they  live  in  the  west  end  of  London  or  the 
east  side  of  New  York.  The  poor  foreigner 
who  lives  at  starvation  wages  in  the  tene- 
ments, and  yet  saves  enough  to  educate  his 

1 06 


SJlf  IBtftntt  of  ^otivs 

boy  for  better  things,  does  not  need  any 
defence  of  poetry.  He  is  a  faithful  believer 
already.  The  rich  American,  whose  orbit 
lies  between  Wall  Street  and  the  park,  is 
not  necessarily  in  need  of  any  defence  of 
poetry;  his  love  of  beauty,  his  devotion  t6 
art,  may  form  a  very  wide  angle  of  his 
pie. 

Nevertheless,  for  the  majority  of  us,  the 
enchantment  of  material  possessions  is  all- 
powerful,  and  we  hold  them  at  an  inflated 
value.  So  that  poetry  is  always  in  need  of  a 
defence;  we  are  always  in  need  of  friends 
of  the  spirit,  and  of  helps  toward  the  finest 
enjoyments;  we  need  to  be  delivered  from 
our  own  worse  elements.  There  is  no  surer 
escape  from  the  prison  of  the  worse  self 
than  through  the  door  of  beautiful  expres- 
sion. If  we  can  follow  any  one  of  the  arts 
or  crafts,  ever  so  humbly,  we  have,  indeed, 
an  exceptional  lot,  happy  beyond  the  fortune 
of  the  majority.  But  even  barring  this  ad- 
vantage,  we   may   still   escape   through    the 

107 


ffilfte  J^ofttff  of  Hift 

^  expression  of  others;  we  may  be  lovers  and 
appreciators  of  the  artistic  and  the  beautiful; 
we  may  borrow  for  a  moment  some  phrase 
of  Wordsworth  or  Stevenson  that  exactly 
speaks  our  own  thought;  or  some  tint  from 
Turner  or  Monet  that  exactly  conveys  our 
own  vision;  and  so  we  become  sharers  with 
these  masters  of  the  universal  joy  of  self- 
expression.  They  have  thus  helped  us  to 
realize  our  own  emotion,  to  visualize  our 
own  vague  fancy;  they  have  brought  us  into 
relation  with  the  outer  ocean  of  truth;  they 
have  given  us  passage  out  into  the  deep  water 
of  emotional  being;  they  have  liberated  us 
from  the  petty  shallows  of  our  smaller  selves. 
The  liberal  arts  are  those  which  make  us 
free;  a  liberal  education  is  one  which  gives 
us  the  freedom  of  the  commonwealth  of  the 
spirit. 

I  fancy  that  the  joy  of  any  great  artist,  a 
great  author  like  Browning,  or  a  great 
painter  like  Millet,  must  reside  in  this,  that 
he  feels  himself  closely  a  part  of  a  greater 

1 08 


Cl^e  IBtftntt  of  ^ottvs 

life  than  his  own.  He  is  an  interpreter,  using 
the  common  symbols  of  our  own  speech,  and 
communicating  to  us  messages  from  the 
ancient,  uncorrupted  language  of  universal 
aspiration.  He  talks  to  us  in  terms  more 
apt  and  beautiful  than  we  could  ever  invent; 
he  brings  us  the  zest  of  conviction,  the  stir 
of  wonder.  When  we  take  his  expressions 
for  a  moment  and  make  them  our  own,  we 
can  no  longer  be  mean,  nor  petty,  nor  sordid, 
nor  engrossed  in  unworthy  pursuits.  We 
have  touched  what  is  more  attractive  and 
entrancing,  and  henceforth  must  live  by 
that  more  alluring  standard  of  enjoyment. 
To  be  sensitive  to  new  impressions  of  beauty, 
to  be  able  to  fill  each  minute  with  some  keen 
sense  of  ennobling  joy,  this  is  a  great  part 
of  the  secret  of  happiness;  and  it  is  this  that 
art  can  help  us  to  attain.  Hardly  anything 
else  can  help  us  so  much  or  so  well. 

Therefore,  poetry,  be  it  said  again,  needs 
no  defender,  save  against  the  vandal  within 
us.    There  is  no  man  walking  this  earth  who 

109 


8rj|e  ^ottvs  of  Hift 

is  not  himself  a  defender  of  poetry  in  his 
best  moments,  and  a  forwarder  of  that  golden 
age  which  is  ever  fleeting  like  a  shadow 
before  us. 


no 


^t0tasite  fot  ©oetrg 


Whether  or  not  there  actually  is  a  grow- 
ing distaste  for  the  higher  kinds  of  poetry 
is  more  a  matter  of  observation  than  of  judg- 
ment; and  the  opinion  of  a  statistician,  if  he 
could  find  the  proper  data  anywhere,  would 
be  more  valuable  than  that  of  the  wisest 
critic.  I  have  no  means  of  coming  to  an  ade- 
quate conclusion  on  the  subject,  but  I  dare 
say  many  thoughtful  persons  must  regretfully 
share  the  recent  apprehension  that  poetry 
has  nothing  like  the  hold  it  used  to  have  on 
men's  minds. 

This,  however,  would  not  necessarily 
mean  the  final  decay  of  poetry  as  a  fine  art. 
It  might  only  indicate  a  temporary  condi- 
tion, a  passing  fluctuation  of  history.   Periods 

III 


of  fine  civilization,  of  intellectual  freedom 
and  spiritual  activity,  have  before  now  given 
place  to  ages  of  grossness,  barbarism,  igno- 
rance, and  decay.  They  may  again.  If 
not  a  book  of  poetry  were  sold  in  a  year,  it 
would  not  prove  the  death  of  poetry;  it 
would  only  prove  the  degeneration  of  the 
time.  At  least  that  is  the  faith  which  the 
story  of  man  up  to  the  present  time  justifies 
us  in  holding. 
y  The  division  of  poetry  into  descriptive, 
lyrical,  reflective,  and  narrative  (epic  and 
dramatic)  is  useful  academically;  but  it 
will  hardly  give  us  sufficient  help  in  deter- 
mining the  relative  value  of  poetical  works, 
and  is  very  likely  to  lead  us  astray.  We 
should  scarcely  be  justified  in  calling  "  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake  "  or  "  The  Lays  of  Ancient 
Rome  "  a  higher  kind  of  poetry  than  "  Tears, 
Idle  Tears,"  or  "Lead,  Kindly  Light," 
simply  because  the  former  deal  with  action 
and  the  latter  with  emotion,  —  though  this, 
perhaps,  is  citing  a  rather  unfair  compari- 

112 


son.  I  believe  we  shall  derive  more  help 
in  our  consideration  of  the  subject,  if  we  re- 
flect rather  on  the  aims  and  natural  function 
of  poetry,  than  on  the  various  forms  in  which 
it  manifests  itself. 

There  are  essential  qualities  common  to  all 
poetry,  and  the  excellence  or  eminence  of 
poetry  depends  on  the  extent  to  which  these 
qualities  are  present  and  the  proportion  in 
which  they  coexist  in  any  particular  in- 
stance. Poetry,  like  the  other  fine  arts,  has  ^ 
arisen  in  answer  to  definite  permanent  needs 
in  our  human  constitution.  It  is  a  subli- 
mated means  of  expression  or  communica- 
tion, transcending  our  daily  speech,  and 
helping  us  to  realize  ourselves.  It  fixes  the 
delight  of  our  happiest  moments  in  some 
recognizable  shape  to  add  to  the  delight  of 
others.  It  may  be  called  a  criticism  of  life, 
because  it  contains  the  wisest  and  most  ma- 
ture thought  of  the  race.  It  is  more  than  a 
criticism  of  life,  however,  since  it  records 
not  only  the  best  that  has  been  thought,  but 

113 


the  best  that  has  been  felt,  also,  as  Arnold 
himself  says.  It  is  not  content  to  appeal  to 
our  minds,  it  must  appeal  to  our  emotions* 
also;  it  must  move  as  well  as  inform  us; 
it  must  convince  us  by  its  reasonableness,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  must  quicken  us  by  its 
passionate  sympathy  and  warmth.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  two  essential  qualities  which 
good  poetry  possesses,  it  must  have  another: 
it  must  appeal  to  our  instinct  for  beauty,  it 
must  charm  our  aesthetic  sensibility  with  its 
rhythms  and  cadences  and  lovely  sounds 
and  entrancing  images.  It  must  give  us 
thought,  indeed,  but  thought  ''  touched  with 
emotion,"  thought  suffused  with  feeling  and 
drenched  with  beauty.  When  a  poem  does 
these  three  things  for  us  in  an  eminent  de- 
gree, it  matters  very  little  whether  it  is 
lyrical  or  epic. 
|/^  Poetry  may,  of  course,  show  one  quality 
without  the  others  or  in  excess  of  the  others. 
It  may  be  extremely  thoughtful  at  the  ex- 
pense of  emotion  and  beauty,  as  in  the  case  of 

114 


some  of  Browning's  longer  poems;  or  it  may 
appeal  chiefly  to  our  feelings,  as  in  the  case 
of  so  many  sentimental  poets;  while,  again, 
its  chief  preeminence  may  be  its  wonderful 
mastery  of  sensuous  beauty,  as  in  the  work 
of  the  pre-Raphaelites.  But  in  whichever 
way  poetry  excels,  it  is  just  that  particular 
excellence  that  gives  it  value.  The  com- 
parative worth  of  a  poem  depends  on  the 
intensity  with  which  it  reaches  us  and  the 
profoundness  with  which  it  influences  our 
springs  of  action. 

Poetry  can  never  have  its  utmost  effect 
except  when  it  makes  use  of  these  three 
avenues  of  approach,  and  sways  our  person- 
ality in  each  of  these  three  ways. 

Again,  great  poetry,  like  any  great  artj 
is  only  produced  in  exceptional  moments;  (v/ 
it  is  not  the  product  of  average  every-day 
life,  but  of  every-day  life  raised  to  the  pitch 
of  normal  perfection;  it  is  the  record  of 
heightened,  if  not  unusual,  experience.  It 
gives  definite  utterance  and  memorable  form 

115 


Clft^  ^oett»  of  ILitt 

to  our  universal  aspirations  and  reflections. 
Whenever  a  piece  of  human  experience  is 
embodied  in  words,  with  more  clarity  of 
thought,  more  intensity  of  feeling,  more 
haunting  charm  of  speech,  than  have  ever 
before  been  bestowed  upon  it,  then  is  a  new 
poem  created  which  outranks  all  others 
on  the  same  theme.  It  is  widely  appre- 
ciated because  it  refers  to  a  common  ex- 
perience, and  it  is  highly  prized  because 
it  makes  us  realize  that  experience  with  un- 
common vividness  and  intensity.  It  attains 
value  in  our  eyes,  and  will  continue  to  be 
treasured  until  in  its  turn  it  is  superseded 
by  another  even  more  true,  more  stirring, 
d  more  beautiful. 

These  fortunate  occurrences,  these  happy 
j  realizations  of  the  creative  impulse,  seem 
I  to  be  quite  beyond  the  control  even  of  the 
sanest  poets.  Homer  nods,  and  Wordsworth 
is  often  far  from  his  best.  No  poet,  if  all 
his  poetry  could  be  recovered,  but  would 
have  some  verse  to  show  which  would  prove 

ii6 


L^ 


Wiutu^tt  for  ^ottvs 

him  fallible.  All  the  more  wonderful,  there- 
fore, seem  the  instances  of  perfection;  so 
that  we  have  come  to  attribute  them  to  in- 
spiration and  to  invest  them  with  reverence. 
This  exceptional  quality  which  we  prize 
in  poetry  is  not,  let  us  remember,  one  of  . 
technique  alone.  We  do  not  value  most 
highly  poetry  which  is  most  beautiful  in 
execution,  unless  it  also  satisfies  our  longing 
for  the  true  and  the  sublime.  It  must  record 
for  us  the  noblest  aspirations  of  the  human 
spirit,  the  ultimate  reach  of  the  soul  after 
goodness;  and  it  must  reveal  to  us  the  clear- 
est, widest  view  of  truth  the  human  mind 
can  attain.  These  spiritual  and  intellectual  / 
feats  are  only  to  be  achieved  in  rare  moments 
of  ecstasy  and  insight,  when  the  individual 
is  lifted  out  of  himself  and  brought  into  rela- 
tion with  the  larger  thought  and  volition  of 
the  universe,  —  of  the  overself.  Naturally 
such  rare  and  exceptional  experiences  cannot 
be  appropriately  expressed  in  common  or 
average  language.    They  demand  heightened 

117 


and  transfigured  forms  of  expression  for 
their  embodiment;  and  only  when  they 
succeed  in  finding  such  appropriate  lodg- 
ment for  themselves  are  their  purpose  and 
destiny  fulfilled. 

Such    experiences    manifest    themselves    in 
all  the  arts,  and  enrich  the  world  with  shapes 
of  beauty.    When  they  choose  the  medium  of 
words,  and  succeed  in  moulding  it  to  some 
happy  presentiment  of  themselves,  they  pro- 
duce poetry  of  the  highest  rank,  of  whatever 
variety  it  may  happen  to  be.     The  Book  of 
Job,    the    Psalms,    the    Iliad,    the    plays    of 
Shakespeare,    have    never    been    superseded, 
!     because    they    have    never    been    surpassed. 
I     They  deal  with  permanent  human  interests 
/      and  perplexities  that  will  draw  men's  atten- 
/      tion  as  long  as  the  world  lasts,  and  they  deal 
with    them    in    a   supremely   beautiful   way. 
If  ever  they  are  supplanted  in  our  affection- 
ate  esteem,    it  will   be   because    these   same 
themes  will  have  found  other  poets  to  treat 
them  even  more  appropriately,  —  more  lov- 

ii8 


mutuutt  tov  ^ottvs 

ingly  and  convincingly  and  with  greater 
charm.  The  future  appreciation  and  fame 
of  the  poets  and  artists  of  any  age  rest  upon 
no  other  ground  than  this. 

If  we  take  this  view  of  poetry,  we  shall 
see  that  it  is  the  result  not  only  of  happy 
concurrences  in  the  nature  of  the  poet,  but 
of  exceptional  conditions  in  his  age  also, 
since  he,  even  more  than  other  men,  must 
be  sensitive  to  his  surroundings  and  coloured 
by  the  temper  of  his  time.  A  dull  or  supine 
or  depraved  period  does  not  foster  what  is 
heroic  and  ennobling  and  lovely.  This  is 
the  law  which  holds  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
such  an  age  may  offer  to  poetry  and  art  a 
stimulating  opportunity,  through  its  very 
disregard  of  all  they  hold  most  dear,  arous- 
ing them,  by  its  opposition  and  contempt, 
to  champion  all  the  more  valiantly  those 
altruistic  causes  which  it  holds  in  derision. 
But  in  the  main  the  art  of  an  age  is  the  meas- 
ure of  that  age.  The  poetry  of  a  people  is 
an  index  to  the  character  of  that  people.    A 

119 


pronounced  and  continued  decline  in  the  art 
and  literature  of  a  nation  means  a  deteriora- 
tion in  one  or  more  of  those  qualities  of 
taste  and  aspiration  and  intellectual  power 
from  which  art  and  literature  spring. 

If,  therefore,  there  actually  is  a  growing 
distaste  for  good  poetry  among  us,  only 
two  conclusions  are  possible.  The  fault  is 
either  in  ourselves  or  in  poetry.  Either  we 
have  become  so  supine,  spiritually  and  aes- 
thetically, that  the  lofty  ideals  of  existing 
poetry  are  abhorrent  to  us,  or  else  we  have 
outgrown  them,  and  the  pabulum  which 
nourished  our  fathers  will  not  do  for  us. 

There  may  be  some  argument  in  favour 
of  the  latter  conclusion.  With  changing 
times  and  manners,  many  forms  of  art  must 
be  laid  aside  as  no  longer  pertinent.  Our 
wants  and  beliefs  are  not  those  of  any  other 
time  or  place;  we  must  require  the  sus- 
taining power  of  a  literature  quite  diflFerent 
from  that  of  the  age  of  Augustus  or  Queen 
Anne   or   the    Pilgrim    Fathers.     The    past 

1 20 


mintu^tt  fox  l&ottvs 

century  has  been  one  of  immense  and  amaz- 
ing unfolding  of  knowledge,  and  a  con- 
sequent rearrangement  of  all  our  ideas.  We 
have  not  had  time  to  assimilate  all  our  new 
thought  and  to  imbue  it  with  feeling;  and 
since  science  must  be  saturated  with  emo- 
tion and  become  part  of  the  familiar  furni- 
ture of  the  mind  before  it  can  be  properly 
used  in  poetry,  we  have  hardly  had  time  to 
evolve  any  poetry  or  art  commensurate  with 
our  increased  spiritual  needs  and  representa- 
tive of  our  enlarged  stores  of  knowledge. 

Again,  much  of  the  old  poetry  may  be 
inadequate.  "  Paradise  Lost,"  for  example, 
can  hardly  have  the  same  hold  on  us  that  it 
had  on  our  parents.  For  them  it  was  an 
impressive  rendering  of  what  they  believed 
to  be  supernatural  facts.  It  must  have  re- 
tained for  them  something  of  the  glamour 
and  authority  of  religion.  For  us  it  is  a 
twice-told  tale,  an  ancient  legend  retold  in 
our  English  tongue,  less  lovely  than  many  of 
the  Greek  myths  that  have  come  down  to 

121 


us,    conspicuous    through    the    stateliness    of    \ 


its  verse,  but  holding  no  unquestionable 
moral  sanction,  having  no  such  spiritual 
significance  as  it  may  once  have  possessed. 
So,  too,  the  vogue  of  Byron  passed  with  the 
passing  tastes  and  requirements  of  his  day. 
Because  he  satisfied  the  sentimental  need 
and  intellectual  hunger  of  a  hundred  years 
ago,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  should  satisfy 
ours.  The  same  thing  may  be  true  of  a  great 
deal  of  poetry  that  was  once  highly  thought 
of,  —  it  may  no  longer  be  capable  of  afford- 
ing the  satisfaction  which  it  is  the  business  of 
poetry  to  give.  I  can  well  believe  that  many 
thoughtful  people  to-day  cannoit  find  in 
poetry  what  they  need.  Matthew  Arnold  in 
his  poetry  gave  some  expression  to  the  soul- 
sickness  of  his  time.  But  it  may  be  that  the 
poetry  which  is  to  cure  that  sickness  has  yet 
to  be  written.  Is  there  not  a  very  large  class 
of  modern  men  and  women  who  are  most 
eager  for  something  great  in  poetry,  —  some- 
thing   that    shall    deal    strongly    with    their 

122 


mintu^tt  for  ^oHxs 

mental  disquiet,  something  that  shall  help 
them  to  live,  something  that  shall  allay 
despair  and  reestablish  their  courage?  Any 
adequate  poetry  ought  to  do  this.  Why  is 
it  not  being  produced  for  us?  Here  is  the 
garden;    where  is  the  voice  of  God? 

Perhaps,  however,  the  first  conclusion  is 
the  right  one,  and  the  fault  does  not  lie  in 
poetry,  but  in  ourselves.  There  are  critics 
who  accuse  us  of  a  too  great  devotion  to 
affairs,  —  to  the  practical  and  material  side 
of  life,  —  who  point  out  our  ruthless  greed, 
our  immeasurable  self-confidence,  our  fla- 
grant corruption,  our  growing  inhumanity. 
If  such  accusations  are  just,  and  if  we  are 
suffering  a  temporary  lapse  into  the  brutality 
of  materialism,  then  certainly  many  of  our 
finer  instincts  must  be  in  eclipse,  and  a  dis- 
taste for  the  beauties  of  poetry  is  only  a 
natural  consequence.  Poetry  appeals  to  the 
better  self  in  man,  and  when  that  better  self 
is  obscured,  poetry  must  languish.  To  care 
for  poetry,  one  must  first  care  for  honour, 

123 


cue  Jl^ottvs  of  2Ltfe 

for  righteousness,  for  truth,  for  freedom,  for 
fair  play,  for  generosity,  for  unselfishness,  — 
in  short,  for  all  those  ideals  of  rectitude  and 
loving-kindness  which  the  long  battle  of 
civilization  has  been  waged  to  establish.  If 
it  is  true  that  our  life  as  individuals  and  as 
nations  is  permeated  with  cheap  facetious- 
ness,  with  disregard  for  public  honesty,  with 
disparagement  of  personal  nobleness,  with 
forgetfulness  of  the  high  traditions  which 
belong  to  our  birth,  then  it  would  be  very 
unreasonable  to  expect  us  to  care  for  poetry. 
It  is  the  pious  office  of  poetry  to  bring 
solace  and  encouragement  and  lofty  pur- 
pose to  the  heart.  To  those  who  are  recreant 
to  their  ideals  it  can  bring  nothing  but  a 
sense  of  shame;  it  can  be  no  delight,  but 
only  a  rebuke. 

But  if  we  are  become  a  gross  and  mate- 
rialistic people,  why  does  no  great  poet  arise 
to  reprove  us  and  lead  us  back  toward  per- 
fection? Here  is  the  wilderness;  where  is 
the  voice? 

124 


W^tautt  for  iPoetts 

Lovers  of  poetry  are  not  the  only  com- 
plainants of  the  present  day,  however.  A 
gentleman  in  the  University  of  Chicago  has 
been  calling  attention  to  the  unwillingness 
of  educated  men  to  enter  the  ministry.  He 
declares  that  out  of  twelve  hundred  students 
in  Harvard,  Yale,  Columbia,  and  Prince- 
ton graduating  this  year,  only  twenty-eight 
of  all  denominations  are  reported  as  intend- 
ing to  enter  the  ministry.  Again,  where 
does  the  fault  lie,  with  religion  or  with  us? 
Why  should  any  educated  man  wish  to  enter 
the  profession  of  divinity?  As  a  calling, 
religion  is  almost  as  poverty-stricken  as 
poetry  itself,  and  its  ministers  as  little  es- 
teemed. We  don't  want  religion  any  more 
than  we  want  poetry.  Why  not?  Have 
we  outgrown  it,  or  are  we  so  debased  that 
it  is  altogether  distasteful  to  us? 

No  sane  and  thoughtful  man  can  believe 
for  a  moment  that  a  great  human  trait  like 
our  need  of  religion  has  passed  away,  any 
more  than  he  can  statedly  believe  the  literal 

125 


8C1&e  J^oettj?  of  ILitt 

declarations  of  the  old  orthodoxy.  And 
because  we  cannot  find  new  forms  to  replace 
the  old  formulas,  we  seem  to  be  losing  our 
grip  on  the  essential  elements  of  faith  and 
piety.  But  even  if  this  be  partly  true,  faith 
in  ideals  will  return.  The  power  of  good- 
ness may  seem  to  be  overcome  for  a  time, 
but  it  must  prevail  anew  as  it  prevailed  of 
old.  After  a  season  of  indifference,  uncer- 
tainty, and  worldliness,  we  shall  take  up 
the  fight  again  against  iniquity,  and  dis- 
honour, and  corruption,  and  oppression,  as 
we  have  done  so  many  times  before  in  the 
long  history  of  the  world,  and  reestablish 
our  broken  ideals  with  the  beautiful  and  the 
good. 

Poetry  will  return  with  religion. 


126 


ConafclloU^ 


I  HAVE  just  been  holding  in  my  hands  a 
literary  treasure  lent  to  me  by  that  delightful 
book-lover,  Mr.  Irving  Way.  It  is  a  first 
edition  of  Arnold's  volume  of  selections  from 
Wordsworth  in  the  Golden  Treasury  Series, 
and  bears  the  inscription  — 

To  Mima  Quillinan  — 

from  her  affectionate  fnend 
Matthew  Arnold. 
Septber,  7th  1879. 

To  sincere  lovers  of  poetry  it  is  a  book  that 
must  have  a  very  great  quickening  interest; 
to  many  of  our  generation  who  owe  to  Arnold 
so  much  of  their  training  in  the  valuation  of 
literature,  it  must  certainly  appeal  in  no  ordi- 
nary degree.    Not  since  I  picked  up  Emer- 

127 


acne  ^ottvs  of  aift 

son's  copy  of  Arnold's  own  poems,  as  a 
visitor  in  that  well-beloved  Concord  study 
nearly  a  score  of  years  ago,  have  I  turned 
the  leaves  of  any  book  with  a  feeling  so 
near  to  veneration.  For  Arnold  must  always 
evoke,  from  me  at  least,  that  emotion  of 
loving  gratitude  which  only  one's  parents 
and  most  intimate  teachers  can  call  forth. 
Now  as  I  read  again  this  incomparable 
preface,  so  lucid,  so  sound,  so  graceful,  so 
courteous,  yet  so  just,  so  penetrating  and 
inflexible  in  the  search  for  truth,  I  am  re- 
minded once  more,  as  I  have  been  reminded 
how  often,  of  our  standing  obligation  to  the 
best  in  literature  and  in  life.  As  a  friend 
of  mine  is  always  saying,  "  Only  the  best  is 
good  enough!"  It  is  the  glory  of  Arnold's 
criticism  that  he  makes  us  realize  this  obliga- 
tion, this  opportunity,  and  helps  us  to  a 
temper  of  quiet  sanity,  neither  censorious 
nor  exuberant,  in  which  we  can  best  enjoy 
what  is  true  and  ennobling  in  letters.  If 
only  we  could  keep  that  temper,  that  habit 

128 


HongffUotD 

of  serenity  and  justness,  unimpaired  for  a 
single  day,  how  much  we  should  gain  in 
power  and  happiness! 

It  is  hardly  within  the  capacity  of  any 
living  critic,  certainly  it  is  not  within  mine, 
to  write  of  poetry  as  Arnold  did.  It  would 
be  folly  to  try.  But  when  we  do  our  best 
to  look  at  the  work  of  any  poet  candidly 
and  judge  it  fairly,  with  sympathy  yet  with- 
out heat,  we  cannot  but  follow  Arnold's 
example  and  precept.  In  this  introduction 
of  his  to  Wordsworth's  poetry,  so  invaluable 
an  aid  to  the  appreciation  of  that  great  Eng- 
lishman, and  indeed  so  reliable  an  assistance 
to  the  study  of  all  poetry,  there  are  several 
remarks  which  I  think  ought  to  help  us  in 
estimating  the  poetry  of  Longfellow. 

"  Wordsworth,"  Arnold  says,  "  composed 
verses  during  a  space  of  some  sixty  years; 
and  it  is  not  much  of  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  within  one  single  decade  of  those 
years,  between  1798  and  1808,  almost  all 
of  his   really  first-rate  work  was  produced. 

129 


8Cft^  ^ottvs  of  %ift 

A  mass  of  inferior  work  remains,  work 
done  before  and  after  this  golden  prime, 
imbedding  the  first-rate  work  and  clogging 
it,  obstructing  our  approach  to  it,  chilling, 
not  unfrequently,  the  high-wrought  mood 
with  which  we  leave  it.  To  be  recognized 
far  and  wide  as  a  great  poet,  to  be  possible 
and  receivable  as  a  classic,  Wordsworth 
needs  to  be  relieved  of  a  great  deal  of  the 
poetical  baggage  which  now  encumbers 
him." 

This  is  true  of  other  poets  as  well  as  of 
Wordsworth.  It  is  not  true  of  Longfellow, 
however.  Few  poets  who  have  written  so 
much  have  maintained  a  more  even  level 
of  achievement.  While  comparatively  few 
of  his  poems,  perhaps,  approach  the  highest 
reach  of  poetry,  very  few  of  them  could  be 
discarded  from  the  whole  body  of  his  work 
without  some  loss  to  his  fame.  Partly  by 
reason  of  his  exquisite  artistic  sense,  partly 
by  his  academic  training  and  cultivated  ap- 
preciation of  literary  values  and  proportions, 

130 


HonflfelloUi 

and  partly,  I  dare  say,  by  a  certain  strain  of 
gracious  humour  in  his  character,  he  was 
saved  from  falling  into  such  utter  banalities 
as  our  beloved  Wordsworth  was  capable  of. 
He  seems  to  have  had  one  of  those  finely 
poised  natures,  not  common  among  artists 
and  poets,  in  which  the  inspirational  and 
the  rational  faculties  are  pretty  evenly  bal- 
anced. If  he  never  rose  to  sublime  heights 
of  enraptured  expression,  under  the  divine 
irresponsible  possession  of  the  muse,  he  never 
sank  to  absurdities  below  the  approval  of 
sober  reason.  He  may  not  have  been  capable 
of  lyrics  like  ''  I  wandered  lonely  as  a 
cloud,"  and  "  My  heart  leaps  up  when  I 
behold,"  and  "  I  heard  a  thousand  blended 
notes,"  but  neither,  on  the  other  hand,  could 
he  ever  have  been  capable  of  many  a  dreary 
passage  in  many  a  forgotten  poem  of  Words- 
worth's. 

It  is  easy  to  forgive  a  great  poet  his  un- 
happy departure  from  the  broad  highways 
of   sane   and   reasonable   utterance   into   the 

131 


SCijt  J^oettff  of  IBLiU 

wilderness  of  platitude.  For  we  perceive,  as 
in  the  case  of  Wordsworth,  the  intensity  of 
purpose  to  which  they  are  due.  We  behold 
him  in  fancy,  a  rapt  prophetic  figure,  pos- 
sessed by  the  glory  of  a  theme,  blinded  by 
the  splendour  of  his  own  vision,  and  so  un- 
regardful  of  the  obvious  dictates  of  common 
sense  that  he  must  often  stumble  on  his 
solitary  way  into  pitfalls  of  bathos  and 
quagmires  of  the  commonplace.  Sorry  as  is 
his  plight  on  these  occasions,  there  must  al- 
ways be  something  to  arouse  our  sympathy 
as  well  as  our  mirth  at  the  situation. 

Is  it  not  this  very  unworldliness,  this  lack 
of  the  restraining  influence  of  prudent  judg- 
ment, this  quixotic  pursuit  of  the  will-o'-the- 
wisp  of  the  imagination,  that  enables  him 
at  other  times  to  scale  the  lofty  peaks  of 
wisdom  which  environ  life,  and  to  bring  us 
wondrous  reports  therefrom?  It  is  not  the 
cautious,  but  the  daring,  who  fall  —  and 
attain.  We  overlook  in  many  a  great  poet 
long  and  tedious  passages  of  prosy  vapidity 

132 


or  superfluous  philosophizing  for  the  com- 
pensation of  a  few  golden  words  of  memo- 
rable significance,  a  few  lines  of  haunting 
and  inescapable  poetry.  We  must  do  so  in 
Wordsworth,  we  must  do  so  in  Whitman, 
we  must  even  do  so,  I  fear,  in  Browning. 
The  poets,  like  Gray  and  Keats  and  Rossetti 
and  Arnold  and  Emerson,  who  need  no  such 
excision,  are  few,  indeed.  They  are  the  rare 
masters  of  song,  endowed  with  a  less  facile 
but  more  exact  and  scrupulous  genius  of 
expression.  As  they  are  too  fastidious  to  be 
lavish,  so  they  are  too  sensitive  and  of  too 
fine  a  taste  to  blunder. 

To  neither  of  these  classes  does  Long- 
fellow belong.  He  is  neither  a  prolific  but 
uneven  poet  like  Wordsworth,  nor  a  surer, 
more  infallible,  though  less  affluent,  poet  like 
Rossetti.  He  is  rather  like  Scott  and  Tenny- 
son in  this  respect,  maintaining  an  even 
tenor  of  utterance  with  unfailing  and  sober 
taste,  neither  frenzied  with  inspiration,  nor 
futile  for  the  lack  of  it.    Not  that  I  mean  to 

133 


assert  that  Longfellow  is  a  greater  or  less 
poet  than  any  of  those  here  named.  In 
matters  of  criticism  we  may  make  compari- 
sons to  advantage  sometimes,  if  they  help  us 
at  all  to  classify  our  own  ideas,  and  to  come 
at  a  just  appreciation  of  the  subject  under 
consideration.  It  is  hardly  ever  profitable 
to  seek  to  establish  the  superiority  of  one 
great  artist  over  another.  That  is  a  decision 
which  time  will  manage  for  us  very  well. 
The  great  thing  for  us  is  to  be  sure  to  get 
the  best  out  of  his  work  and  take  it  home 
to  ourselves. 

To  mention  Longfellow  in  the  same  sen- 
tence with  Tennyson,  therefore,  need  not 
imply  any  superiority  of  one  or  the  other. 
They  are  comparable  in  the  exquisite  ar- 
tistry of  their  work  and  in  the  tenor  of  their 
lives.  Both  were  gentle  born;  both  were 
college  bred;  both  were  happy  in  their 
lives,  their  friends,  their  homes;  both  were 
permitted  by  fortune  to  be  exempt  from 
poverty  and  the  distressful  cares  which  have 

134 


harassed  so  many  poets  and  dissipated  their 
powers;  both  were  serene  and  moderate 
gentlemen,  greatly  and  widely  beloved;  and 
both  had  long  unbroken  careers  of  worldly 
and  artistic  prosperity,  crowned  at  last  with 
memorials  in  the  great  English  Abbey. 
However  they  may  have  differed  in  tempera- 
ment and  mental  equipment,  the  outward 
similarity  of  their  surroundings  may  have 
had  something  to  do  with  producing  this 
common  trait  in  their  work,  —  its  scrupulous 
artistic  perfection.  For  it  may  be  said  of 
them  both  that  their  glory  depends  on  the 
mass  of  their  poetical  achievement,  —  a  large 
body  of  work  of  uniform  excellence.  I  dare 
say  I  could  be  taken  to  task  for  emphasizing 
this  similarity,  and  I  dare  say  there  are 
admirers  of  the  great  Laureate  who  would 
insist  on  his  complete  superiority  to  our 
American.  If  so,  they  must  afford  to  be 
generous;  for  Longfellow  certainly  did 
much  the  same  service  for  poetry  in  America 
that  Tennyson  did  in  England.     He  filled 

135 


acJie  ^ottvs  of  3LiU 

the  public  eye;  he  satisfied  the  popular  con- 
ception of  what  a  poet  ought  to  do;  he 
maintained  the  prestige  of  poetry  unim- 
paired; he  carried  its  traditions  and  exem- 
plified its  worth  in  the  sentiment  of  his 
country.  In  the  day  of  small  beginnings  he 
not  only  made  a  place  and  name  for  himself 
in  his  own  land,  but  filled  the  world  with 
his   fame.  ^ ^ 

I  must  return  to  Arnold's  introduction  to 
Wordsworth  for  another  suggestion  that  will 
serve  as  well  in  thinking  of  Longfellow 
and  his  poetry.  It  is  this  significant  pas- 
sage: 

"  It  is  important,  therefore,  to  hold  fast 
to  this:  that  poetry  is  at  bottom  a  criticism 
of  life;  that  the  greatness  of  a  poet  lies  in 
his  powerful  and  beautiful  application  of 
ideas  to  life,  —  to  the  question,  How  to  live. 
Morals  are  often  treated  in  a  narrow  and 
false  fashion,  they  are  bound  up  with  sys- 
tems of  thought  and  belief  which  have  had 
their  day,  they  are  fallen  into  the  hands  of 

136 


pedants  and  professional  dealers,  they  grow 
tiresome  to  some  of  us.  We  find  attraction 
at  times  even  in  a  poetry  of  revolt  against 
them,  —  or  we  find  attractions  in  a  poetry 
indifferent  to  them,  in  a  poetry  where  the 
contents  may  be  what  they  will,  but  where 
the  form  is  studied  and  exquisite.  We  de- 
lude ourselves  in  either  case;  and  the  best 
cure  for  our  delusion  is  to  let  our  minds  rest 
upon  that  great  and  inexhaustible  word  life, 
until  we  learn  to  enter  into  its  meaning.  A 
poetry  of  revolt  against  moral  ideas  is  a 
poetry  of  revolt  against  life;  a  poetry  of 
indifference  to  moral  ideas  is  a  poetry  of 
indifference    toward    life/' 

He  then  goes  on  to  remark  how  English 
poetry  has  been  chiefly  notable  for  the  suc- 
cess with  which  it  has  dealt  with  life,  and 
how  Wordsworth's  particular  glory  is  that 
he  has  dealt  with  it  so  powerfully.  I  fancy 
that  is  also  true  both  of  Tennyson  and  Long- 
fellow. They  were  both  thoroughly  ab- 
sorbed in  moral  ideas  and  in  getting  these 

137 
0 


©tie  ^ottvs  ot  IL(fe 

ideas   expressed   in   their   poetry.     Not   that 
either  one  of  them  was  specially  devoted  to 
any  pronounced  or  definite  system  or  code. 
But  a  profound  sentiment  for  morality,  for 
the    ethical    opportunity    of    life,    possessed 
them.     Not  a  poem  in  their  pages  but  has 
some  bearing  on  that  difficult  question,  How 
i    to  live.     In  this  regard,  of  course,  they  are 
I    brothers  of  Wordsworth,  yes,  and  of  Whit- 
j   man  and  Emerson  and  Browning  also.     It  is 
impossible    to    imagine    any    of    these    great 
poets  writing  a  poem  that  should  be  beauti- 
ful  but  without  spiritual  significance. 

Longfellow,  then,  was  not  merely  nor 
even  primarily  an  artist  in  words.  He  was  a 
man  of  deep  and  serious  convictions  and 
feelings,  beholding  the  varied  pageant  of 
life,  and  desiring  to  give  utterance  to  his 
thoughts  about  it.  That  he  should  have  been 
able  to  give  his  thoughts  a  finished  and  beau- 
tiful verbal  form,  was  a  subsidiary  gift.  He 
was  an  artist  to  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  as 
has  been  said  of  him,  but  he  was  first  a  poet 

138 


—  since  there  is  no  other  term  to  use.  It  is 
impossible  to  read  a  page  of  Longfellow 
without  "feeling  this  moral  force.  It  is  not 
only  evident  in  his  obviously  spiritual  poems, 
like  "  The  Psalm  of  Life,"  but  is  present  in 
all  of  his  poems.  It  is  the  main  theme  every- 
where. You  perceive  that  the  main  business 
of  his  endeavours  is  not  the  creation  of  a 
mere  illusion,  however  beautiful,  but  the 
revelation  of  goodness — the  great  active  per- 
vading goodness  of  the  universe.  He  is  too 
excellent  an  artist  to  be  merely  didactic,  but 
he  is  too  excellent  a  poet  to  be  merely  ar- 
tistic. He  is  no  trifler.  The  great  subject  of 
life  engrosses  him  seriously  and  colours  all 
his  work.  He  "may  not  have  dealt  with  it 
as  powerfully  as  Wordsworth  and  Emerson 
did,  nor  even  as  magically  as  Tennyson  did; 
but  he  dealt  with  it  constantly  and  success- 
fully, and  he  dealt  with  little  else. 

The  ideas  he  applied  to  life  were  not 
new;  they  were  often  trite,  and  his  manner 
of  applying  them  was  often  trite.     But  they 

139 


E^f^t  ponts  of  aife 

were  always  sincere  and  always  suffused  with 
gentleness.  More  than  that,  they  were  the 
ideas  common  to  the  vast  majority  of  people, 
—  the  mighty  average  of  humanity,  —  and  to 
that  great  audience  Longfellow  will  always 
make  a  stirring  appeal.  The  lucidity  and 
obviousness  of  his  craftsmanship,  the  quie- 
tude of  his  sentiment,  the  ever  present  human 
interest  in  his  work,  will  always  continue  to 
find  hosts  of  readers.  He  may  not  be  ac- 
claimed and  cherished  among  persons  of  a 
possibly  overfastidious  culture,  but  he  will 
always  be  dear  to  the  hearts  of  thousands. 
I  cannot  feel  at  the  present  time  that 
Longfellow  restores  me  to  myself  as  Arnold 
and  Wordsworth  do  when  I  read  them,  or 
that  he  enheartens  and  stimulates  me  as 
Browning  and  Emerson  do;  but  neither  can 
I  forget  that  he  once  did  so.  I  cannot  forget 
that  he  was  the  first  poet  to  stir  that  living 
enthusiasm  for  poetry,  which  we  all  possess 
to  some  extent;  that  he  revealed  to  me  the 
world  of  men  with  a  certain  glamour  that 

140 


has  never  departed  from  it,  and  first  hinted 
at  the  sad  and  splendid  significance  of  life. 
To-day  it  may  take  a  more  cunning  art  than 
his  to  work  this  magic  incantation,  and 
distil  a  happiness  out  of  poetry;  perhaps 
even  the  greatest  poets  can  furnish  little  else 
than  solace  to  our  doubtful  maturity;  but  I 
fox  one  must  for  ever  remember  the  haunting 
flavour  of  ''  Hiawatha,"  or  the  lines  "  To  the 
River  Charles." 

To  bring  Longfellow's  poetry  to  the  test 
of  any  sort  of  critical  scrutiny,  however,  is 
a  different  matter.  One  must  put  aside  the 
promptings  of  personal  gratitude  and.  re- 
membered preference,  and  make  some 
attempt  at  impartiality,  however  inept. 
Perhaps  the  high-water  mark  of  Longfel- 
low's poetical  achievement  is  to  be>  found 
in  his  sonnets.  At  least  it  is  in  these  rather 
than  in  his  longer  narrative  poems  that  he 
speaks  with  the  unequivocal  note  of  genius. 
They  have  a  distinction  and  dignity  of  utter- 
ance not  always  to  be   found   in  his  work. 

141 


Cfie  jpoetts  of  Hift 

His  mastery  of  technique  made  him  at  home 
in  that  difficult  form,  while  the  strict  limi- 
tations of  the  sonnet  gave  his  facile  genius 
just  the  restraint  it  sometimes  lacked. 

In  "  Evangeline,"  for  instance,  I  cannot 
feel  that  Longfellow  is  always  successful. 
The  great  ease  and  looseness  of  the  form, 
imposing  few  restrictions  on  his  narrative, 
often  betrayed  him  into  writing  prose,  —  or 
at  least  unpoetical  verse.  He  does  not  al- 
ways succeed  in  being  simple  without  being 
common  and  flat.  So  that  occasionally  the 
poem  loses  its  rightful  dignity,  and  seems 
cheap,  where  it  only  ought  to  seem  homely. 
No  flaws  in  style,  however,  can  nullify  the 
effect  of  the  story,  or  make  its  pathos  seem 
tawdry.  It  is  too  genuine  for  that,  and  will 
always  have  its  scores  of  readers  as  long  as 
simple  people  continue  to  care  for  simple 
things,  and  youthful  hearts  are  moved  by 
tales  of  sorrow  and  of  love. 

In  "The  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish," 
Longfellow    is   somewhat   more   succinct   in 

142 


style.  He  seems  to  have  gained  a  more 
perfect  control  over  his  hexameters  in  the 
ten  year^  which  passed  after  the  writing  of 
"  Evangeline."  Perhaps  the  greater  light- 
ness of  the  subject  may  have  given  a  greater 
neatness  and  precision  to  his  hand;  certainly 
from  a  technical  point  of  view  the  later 
poem  seems  the  better,  though  less  stirring 
and  serious  in  its  human  appeal.  That  it 
should  have  become,  like  ''  Evangeline,"  a 
classic  in  American  literature  (or  perhaps 
we  had  better  say  in  English  literature),  is 
not  surprising.  Longfellow's  inalienable 
renown  rests  on  a  sort  of  universal  suffrage. 
He  has  contributed  more  classics,  more 
recognized  favourite  poems,  to  our  poetry 
than  any  other  American  author,  more,  in- 
deed, than  most  English  authors.  And 
among  his  longer  works  none  hold  a  more 
secure  place  than  these  two  tales  of  early 
Colonial  life  told  in  flowing  hexameters. 

Only  two  other  extended  works  of  their 
author  can  be  placed  beside  them  in  popu- 

143 


JETiie  lloetrj?  of  HiU 

larity,  —  the  "  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn  "  and 
"  Hiawatha. '^  In  thinking  of  these  impor- 
tant undertakings,  and  in  reading  Longfel- 
low's life  and  the  account  of  his  literary 
achievements,  one  cannot  but  be  amazed  at 
the  facility  and  ease  with  which  he  com- 
posed. That  ''  Evangeline "  should  have 
been  written  in  little  more  than  a  year  seems 
creditable  enough,  but  that  ^'  Miles  Stan- 
dish  "  should  have  been  finished  within 
three  months  and  ''  Hiawatha  "  in  five  seems 
almost  incredible.  Yet  Colonel  Higginson 
notes  that  "  *  Hiawatha '  was  begun  on  June 
25,  1854,  and  published  on  November  loth 
of  that  year."  So  that  our  poet  must  have 
written  about  fifty  lines  every  day,  includ- 
ing Sundays,  and  then  only  allowed  about 
fifteen  days  for  the  printer  and  binder  to  do 
their  work.  Evidently  some  people  were  not 
slow  in  those  days.  I  hardly  know  which  to 
wonder  at  most,  the  unflagging  and  abun- 
dant vitality  of  such  genius,  or  the  astonish- 
ing rapidity  of  such  book-making.    But  there 

144 


can  be  no  doubt  of  Longfellow's  copious 
capacity  for  production.  At  a  time  when  he 
was  longing  for  a  good  snow-storm  to  block 
the  door  against  interruptions,  while  he  was 
working  on  "  The  Divine  Tragedy,"  he  was 
still  able  to  write  ''  a  scene  or  two  every 
day."  And  again  he  wrote  fifteen  of  the 
lyrics  of  ^'  The  Saga  of  King  Olaf  "  in  as 
many  days,  and  that  ''  with  all  kinds  of  in- 
terruptions," —  an  altogether  remarkable 
performance,  which  we  can  scarcely  par- 
allel. Our  sounding  new  cities  are  built  out 
of  nothing  in  a  few  years,  or  a  few  months, 
but  something  seems  to  delay  our  great  new 
poems. 

Just  wherein  the  peculiar  charm  of  "  Hia- 
watha "  rests,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  But 
the  unwonted  measure,  with  its  monotonous 
"  feminine  endings,"  as  they  are  called,  and 
the  unusual  style,  with  its  recurrent  phrases, 
were  blended  together  by  a  happy  inspira- 
tion for  the  depicting  of  its  scenes.  They 
keep   that   air   of   pristine   innocence   which 

145 


2CJ|e  J&ottvn  of  JLitt 

everywhere  pervades  the  poem;  they  do  not 
rob  its  themes  and  characters  of  the  natural 
dignity  which  belongs  to  them,  and  yet  they 
have  none  of  the  sophistication  which  would 
have  necessarily  characterized  a  more  con- 
ventional treatment  of  the  subject.  In  blank 
verse,  for  instance,  these  folk-tales  would 
have  been  much  less  effective.  It  is  perhaps 
rash  to  say  that  the  task  could  not  have  been 
better  done,  or  that  no  form  could  have  been 
found  more  appropriate  for  this  particular 
purpose.  Perhaps  we  do  not  know  the  In- 
dian well  enough  to  judge.  Our  conception 
of  him,  or  at  least  our  conception  of  his 
legends,  must  always  be  coloured  by  our 
remembrance  of  Hiawatha.  And  I  confess 
there  is  an  inescapable  wizardry  hanging 
about  the  poem  which  I  can  never  shake  off. 
It  is  one  of  those  things  which  I  could  never 
even  attempt  to  judge  impartially.  Its  ca- 
dences and  pictures  are  too  inextricably  tied 
up  with  memories  of  charmed  days  long  ago, 
when    bears    inhabited    the   back   lot,    when 

146 


hostile  tribes  skulked  through  underbrush  at 
the  pasture's  edge,  and  we  used  to  go  moose- 
hunting- (on  real  snow-shoes)  with  wooden 
guns  of  our  own  manufacture. 

Longfellow's  most  ambitious  work  is  a 
comparative  failure.  Like  so  many  great 
poets,  he  experienced  the  irony  of  the  muse, 
and  when  he  attempted  most,  was  permitted 
to  accomplish  least.  "  Christus  "  was  born 
of  a  noble  conception,  whose  fulfilment  lay 
beyond  its  author's  power.  It  was,  indeed, 
Longfellow's  intention  to  make  this  his 
magnum  opus.  His  meditations  upon  it 
dominated  a  great  part  of  his  literary  life, 
and  the  actual  labour  expended  upon  it  was 
greater  than  on  any  other  one  of  his  writ- 
ings. Yet  it  would  scarcely  be  missed  by  the 
average  reader,  if  omitted  from  his  works. 
He  was  far  from  being  at  his  best  in  the 
drama,  even  in  a  drama  of  the  cloister,  such 
as  "  Christus  "  is.  There  is  another  insuper- 
able obstacle,  however,  to  his  success  in  such 
an  undertaking,  which  becomes  apparent  in 

147 


2Ci|e  jpofttg  of  atfe 

"  The  Divine  Tragedy,"  the  first  part  of 
this  noble  venture.  It  is  simply  this,  that  in 
retelling  the  tales  of  the  life  of  our  Lord 
from  the  New  Testament,  he  is  competing 
with  that  great  masterpiece  of  literature,  the 
New  Testament  itself.  The  story  of  Christ 
has  been  told  once  for  all.  An  artist  or 
writer  who  would  use  that  sublime  figure 
for  the  centre  of  interest  in  his  theme,  must 
not  adhere  to  the  Bible  version  of  that  great 
life,  but  must  diverge  from  it.  His  work, 
of  course,  must  not  controvert  the  Scriptures, 
but  it  must  be  an  imaginative  supplement 
to  them.  It  must  be  apocryphal.  By  intro- 
ducing the  words  of  Christ  in  all  their 
familiarity  into  his  poem,  Longfellow  in- 
evitably lost  his  hold  upon  his  readers.  His 
work  became  a  graceful  transliteration,  in- 
stead of  an  original  creation.  The  epilogue, 
for  example,  is  simply  the  Apostle's  Creed, 
taken  verbatim  from  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  The  whole  poem,  therefore,  is  a 
mistake,  an  error  in  artistic  judgment. 

148 


Honofellobi 

We  are  not  to  judge  any  poet  by  his  errors, 
however,  but  by  his  successes,  the  great 
things  ht  accomplished  for  our  lasting  bene- 
fit and  enjoyment.  We  need  great  poetry 
to-day  —  though  we  do  not  know  it  —  more 
than  we  need  anything  else.  All  that  indus- 
try can  give  we  are  constantly  adding  to 
life;  but  the  spiritual  enhancements,  the 
aids  to  happiness  which  poetry  and  art  and 
culture  alone  can  give  us,  we  are  as  con- 
stantly neglecting.  With  all  the  afiPairs  of 
daily  life  we  deal  with  commendable 
promptness  and  power;  to  the  affairs  of  the 
intellectual  life,  however,  we  are  still  too  in- 
different. It  is  an  old  plaint,  indeed,  one 
that  our  preachers  and  critics  are  never  tired 
of  dinning  in  our  ears;  but  it  is  just,  never- 
theless. And  as  we  gradually  come  to  real- 
ize our  human  needs  in  a  spiritual  and 
intellectual  direction  more  and  more,  we 
shall  turn  with  more  and  more  avidity  to  art 
and  poetry  to  satisfy  us.  Nor  will  poetry  in 
that  day  be  found  deficient.     It  will   arise 

149 


sue  lloettfi  of  mu 

at  our  demand,  fresh  and  great,  to  supply 
our  strong  requirements,  and  we  shall  have 
a  national  poetry  commensurate  with  our 
country,  with  our  race,  with  our  dreams. 

But  we  shall  never  be  exempt  from  our 
debt  to  the  old  poets  for  all  they  have  done 
for  us,  and  for  all  they  are  doing  from  day 
to  day.  For  if  "  the  poetry  of  earth  is  never 
dead,"  neither  is  the  poetry  of  man.  And 
among  those  who  have  wrought  in  that  wide 
field  of  human  endeavour  with  so  much 
lofty  and  sincere  devotion,  the  blameless 
Longfellow  is  eminent  and  secure. 


150 


^tntmm 


Is  it  a  hundred  years  since  Emerson's 
birth?  It  is  time  for  another  Emerson. 
There  will  be  many  still  living  this  spring 
to  keep  his  memory  fresh,  to  recount  to  us 
what  manner  of  man  he  was  —  his  personal 
friends,  and  those  who  had  the  good  fortune 
to  hear  his  voice. 

There  are  others  whose  debt  to  him  is 
also  incalculably  great,  who  can  only  bear 
testimony  to  the  influence  of  the  prophet 
and  poet.  The  man  himself  they  never 
knew.  That  was  their  loss  and  must  al- 
ways remain  a  regret  in  their  lives.  Nothing 
in  later  life,  I  fancy,  can  supply  the  impulse 
which  young  hero-worship  brings;    and  not 

151 


sue  ^ottvs  of  2L(fe 

to   have   seen   one's   hero   in   the   flesh   must 
always  seem  an  irreparable  deprivation. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  when  we  were  all 
of  us  even  younger  than  we  are  now,  there 
were  thousands  of  youthful  hearts  imbued 
with  the  passion  for  truth  and  encouraged 
in  noble  ambitions  by  Emerson's  incom- 
parable words.  Scholars,  dreamers,  stu- 
dents in  college,  in  the  counting-room,  by 
the  lonely  fire  of  logs,  or  within  the  sound 
of  hurrying  feet  on  the  pavement  —  the 
message  came  to  them  with  revelation  and 
hope.  It  was  a  time  when  science  was  des- 
troying superstition.  To  many  a  conscien- 
tious mind,  being  bred  under  the  shadow 
of  scrupulous  orthodoxy,  and  yet  beginning 
to  be  touched  with  divine  doubt,  the  proc- 
ess of  change  was  full  of  sadness.  To  the 
thoughtful  boy,  beginning  to  turn  his  eyes 
inward  for  the  source  of  light,  yet  enam- 
oured with  the  engaging  loveliness  of  the 
earth,  it  seemed  the  height  of  tragedy  to  have 
the    pillars    of    established    faith    removed. 

152 


iBmtxnon 

Not  every  one  had  the  hardihood  to  accept 
all  the  conclusions  of  the  new  science  with- 
out shrinking.  There  was  need  of  a  great 
friend  whose  unflinching  courage  might 
serve  as  a  stay  amid  tottering  creeds  and 
overthrown  convictions. 

That  friend  was  Emerson.  Other  philoso- 
phers and  scientists,  inflexible  in  the  cause 
of  truth,  might  overturn  the  temples  of 
our  fathers,  but  that  gentle  yet  intrepid 
spirit  gave  us  a  more  spacious  house  of  wor- 
ship, bidding  us  abandon  the  old  without  a 
regret.  He  taught  us  to  look  with  equanim- 
ity upon  the  decay  of  dogma,  and  reassured 
us  with  confidence  in  the  free  spiritual  life 
which  dogma  had  overcrusted  and  obscured. 
He  made  us  glad  of  our  loss  and  light- 
hearted  at  being  freed  from  an  encum- 
brance. We  perceived  that  while  the  signs 
and  vestments  of  our  paternal  religion  might 
vanish  like  smoke,  the  breath  of  goodness 
at  the  core  of  things  remained  potent  and 
quickening  as  before. 

153 


2rt|t  Jloettff  ot  IBLiU 

To  render  this  incalculable  service  for 
a  growing  generation,  secured  for  Emerson 
a  unique  loyalty  and  enthusiasm,  and  we 
came  to  look  upon  him  with  that  tender 
reverence  which  unquestioned  goodness  al- 
ways inspires.  I  know  not  how  it  may  be 
with  those  who  are  of  age  to  assume  the 
toga  virilis  to-day,  but  I  fancy  there  is  no 
living  voice  to  hearten  and  inspire  now  as 
there  was  then.  However  credulous  our 
ears,  however  fervent  our  fancy,  however 
noble  and  unselfish  our  aspiration,  we  listen 
in  vain  for  the  confident  voice  of  joyous 
revelation  sounding  through  the  world. 
There  is  now  no  prophet  in  Israel,  and  the 
Philistines  may  triumph  unrebuked. 

In  all  his  prose,  in  all  his  verse,  Emerson 
is  the  lover  of  truth,  the  advocate  of  the 
spiritual  in  life,  and  the  foe  of  all  mean  con- 
siderations. Compromise  was  for  him  im- 
possible, and  worldly  wisdom  but  another 
name  for  poltroonery.  So  single-hearted 
was    he,    so    thoroughly    the    preacher    of 

154 


lEmtvnon 

righteousness,  that  his  work  does  not  give 
us  the  satisfaction  in  sensuous  beauty  which 
we  derive  from  many  poets  —  his  inferiors. 
It  has  even  been  said  of  him,  in  this  regard, 
that  he  was  not  a  great  artist,  that  his  mes- 
sage was  delivered  without  regard  to  effect, 
that  in  him  the  matter  was  of  more  impor- 
tance than  the  form,  that  he  had  no  style. 
But  this  is  hardly  so.  Consider  how  thor- 
oughly the  pellucid  spirit  of  the  man  per- 
meated all  his  words,  making  his  phrases, 
often  homely  and  unadorned,  more  memo- 
rable than  the  most  richly  wrought  utter- 
ances of  other  men.  His  work  is  like  his 
person,  as  one  imagines  it  —  the  most  radi- 
ant and  diaphanous  tenement  of  soul.  So 
clear  was  his  conception  of  the  truth,  it 
could  not  be  diluted  nor  obscured,  but  must 
come  to  us  by  the  shortest  way,  as  simply 
and  directly  as  possible.  He  was  a  speaker 
of  precepts  and  maxims,  not  a  builder  of 
rhyme  —  at  least  not  in  the  sense  that  Mil- 
ton   and    Tennyson    were.      With    him    the 

155 


main  thing  was  not  the  creation  of  a  de- 
tached and  finished  mechanism  in  words 
embodying  so  much  moral  truth  or  philo- 
sophic thought,  but  rather  the  expression  of 
his  convictions  with  the  least  possible  amount 
of  reliance  on  language.  He  cared  for  his 
message  more  than  his  medium. 

Yet  in  spite  of  this,  I  think  we  must  con- 
cede the  greatness  of  Emerson  as  an  artist 
—  as  the  master  of  a  style  peculiarly  his 
own.  For  it  is  the  mark  of  an  artist  so  to 
impress  himself  upon  his  medium,  so  un- 
mistakably to  qualify  his  work,  as  to  make 
it  a  unique  product,  the  very  image  and 
likeness  of  himself.  It  is  always  possible 
to  say  of  the  art  of  any  great  master:  "  This 
is  his;  it  can  be  the  work  of  none  other; 
here  is  the  very  man  himself."  And  of 
whom  can  we  say  this,  if  not  of  the  adorable 
sage  of  Concord  village?  He  was  an  origi- 
nal thinker,  it  is  true;  but  he  also  was  an 
original  artist;  he  wrote  like  no  one  else. 
Both  in  method  and  in  substance  he  shares 

156 


with  Whitman  the  distinction  of  being  the 
most  novtl  and  significant  of  American 
poets.  For  incomparable  freshness  of 
phrase  and  trenchancy  of  diction  they  are 
only  approached,  in  a  younger  generation, 
by  that  other  strange,  solitary  New  Eng- 
lander,  Emily  Dickinson.  And  Emily  Dick- 
inson's output,  for  all  its  brilliancy  and 
vigour,  was  somewhat  too  slight,  too  un- 
varied, and  too  thin,  to  lift  her  to  a  place 
among  the  mighty  masters  of  English  po- 
etry, though  her  place  among  the  lesser 
immortals  —  the  little  masters  —  is  secure. 

Emerson  himself  is  not  easily  comparable  '-^ 
with  other  poets.  At  this  time  of  his  cen- 
tennial, a  white  day  in  the  annals  of  New 
England,  it  is  more  profitable  to  heed  his 
lesson  than  to  take  his  measure.  In  the 
bewildering  maze  of  a  breathless  commer- 
cial civilization,  it  is  well  to  have  something 
tonic  and  unflinching  to  refer  to.  We  never 
needed  Emerson's  radiant  faith  in  ideas  and 
ideals   more   than  we   do   to-day,    and   such 

157 


©5^  JPoetts  of  aift 

a  faith  never  seemed  farther  from  our 
thoughts.  If  we  have  read  him  and  pondered 
him  when  we  were  boys,  and  derived  any 
moral  stimulus  from  his  wholesome,  glad 
morality,  let  us  read  him  and  ponder  him 
again.  He  is  a  deep  well,  and  we  may  go 
to  him  often  for  refreshment,  with  no  fear 
of  his  failing.  And  if  any  of  us  have  not 
yet  made  his  acquaintance,  let  us  hurry  to 
repair  that  misfortune  as  quickly  as  may 
be.  To  tell  the  truth,  we  need  the  Philip- 
pines much  less  than  we  need  another  Emer- 
son; but  since  we  have  got  the  Philippines, 
we  need  an  original  Emerson  all  the  more. 
He  will  help  us  to  add  honesty  and  refine- 
ment, taste  and  beauty  and  modest  sincerity, 
to  our  sturdy  self-assurance;  so  that  our 
civilization  may  stand  for  something  noble 
in  history,  as  well  as  something  gigantic. 


158 


Mt,  3ltleg*0  iloetrg 


Even  if  Mr.  Riley's  delightful  poetry  — 
which,  along  with  his  prose,  now  has  the 
distinction  of  a  beautiful  uniform  edition 
—  had  no  claim  to  distinction  in  itself,  the 
fact  of  its  unrivalled  popularity  would 
challenge  consideration.  But,  fortunately, 
his  work  does  not  depend  on  so  frail  a  tenure 
of  fame  as  the  vogue  of  a  season  or  the  life 
of  a  fad.  The  qualities  which  secure  for  it 
a  wider  reading  and  a  heartier  appreciation 
than  are  accorded  to  any  other  living  Ameri- 
can poet  are  rooted  deep  in  human  nature; 
they  are  preeminently  qualities  of  whole- 
someness  and  common  sense,  those  qualities 
of  steady  and  conservative  cheerfulness  which 
ennoble  the  average  man,  and  in  which  the 

159 


man  of  exceptional  culture  is  too  often  lack- 
ing. Its  lovers  are  the  ingenuous  home-keep- 
ing hearts,  on  whose  sobriety  and  humour 
the  national  character  is  based.  And  yet, 
one  has  not  said  enough  when  one  says  it  is 
poetry  of  the  domestic  affections,  poetry  of 
sentiment;  for  it  is  much  more  than  that. 
(  Poetry  which  is  free  from  the  unhappy 
spirit  of  the  age,  free  from  dejection,  from 
doubt,  from  material  cynicism,  neither 
tainted  by  the  mould  of  sensuality  nor  wasted 
by  the  maggot  of  reform,  is  no  common 
product,  in  these  days.  So  much  of  our  art 
and  literature  is  ruined  by  self-consciousness, 
running  to  the  artificial  and  the  tawdry.  It  is 
the  slave  either  of  commercialism,  imita- 
tive, ornate,  and  insufferably  tiresome,  or 
of  didacticism,  irresponsible  and  dull.  But 
Mr.  Riley  at  his  best  is  both  original  and 
sane.  He  seems  to  have  accomplished  that 
most  difficult  feat,  the  devotion  of  one's  self 
to  an  art  without  any  deterioration  of  health. 
He  is  full  of  the  sweetest  vitality,  the  sound- 

i6o 


JWr*  Milts'^  ^otits 

est  merriment.  His  verse  is  not  strained  with 
an  overburden  of  philosophy,  on  the  one 
hand,  nor  debauched  with  maudlin  senti- 
mentalism,  on  the  other.  Its  robust  gaiety 
has  all  the  fascination  of  artlessness  and 
youth.  It  neither  argues,  nor  stimulates,  nor 
denounces,  nor  exhorts;  it  only  touches  and 
entertains  us.  And,  after  all,  few  things  are 
more  humanizing  than  innocent  amusement. 
It  is  because  of  this  quality  of  abundant 
good  nature,  familiar,  serene,  homely,  that 
it  seems  to  me  no  exaggeration  to  call  Mr. 
Riley  the  typical  American  poet  of  the  day. 
True,  he  does  not  represent  the  cultivated 
and  academic  classes;  he  reflects  nothing 
of  modern  thought;  but  in  his  unruffled 
temper  and  dry  humour,  occasionally  flip- 
pant on  the  surface,  but  never  facetious  at 
heart,  he  might  stand  very  well  for  the 
normal  American  character  in  his  view  of 
life  and  his  palpable  enjoyment  of  it.  Most 
foreign  critics  are  on  the  lookout  for  the 
appearance  of  something  novel  and  uncon- 

i6i 


?!Ctie  Poetts  of  mtt 

ventional  from  America,  forgetting  that  the 
laws  of  art  do  not  change  with  longitude. 
They  seize  now  on  this  writer,  now  on  that, 
as  the  eminent  product  of  democracy.  But 
there  is  nothing  unconventional  about  Mr. 
Riley.  ''  He  is  like  folks,"  as  an  old  New 
England  farmer  said  of  Whittier.  And  if  the 
typical  poet  of  democracy  in  America  is 
to  be  the  man  who  most  nearly  represents 
^  average  humanity  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  this  country,  who  most  com- 
pletely expresses  its  humour,  its  sympathy, 
its  intelligence,  its  culture,  and  its  common 
sense,  and  yet  is  not  without  a  touch  of  origi- 
nal genius  sufficient  to  stamp  his  utterances, 
then  Mr.  James  Whitcomb  Riley  has  a  just 
claim  to  that  title. 

He  is  unique  among  American  men  of 
letters  (or  poets,  one  might  better  say;  for 
strictly  speaking  he  is  hardly  a  man  of 
letters)  in  that  he  has  originality  of  style,  and 
yet  is  entirely  native  and  homely.  Whitman 
was  original,  but  he  was  entirely  prophetic 

162 


and  remote,  appealing  only  to  the  few; 
Longfellow  had  style,  but  his  was  the  voice 
of  our  collegiate  and  cultivated  classes.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  rank  or  comparison;  it 
is  merely  a  matter  of  definitions.  It  is  the 
position  rather  than  the  magnitude  of  any 
particular  and  contemporary  star  that  one 
is  interested  in  fixing.  To  determine  its 
magnitude,  a  certain  quality  of  endurance 
must  be  taken  into  account;  and  to  observe 
this  quality  often  requires  considerable  time. 
Quite  apart,  then,  from  Mr.  Riley's  relative 
merit  in  the  great  anthology  of  English 
poetry,  he  has  a  very  definite  and  positive 
place  in  the  history  of  American  letters  as 
the  first  widely  representative  poet  of  the 
American  people. 

He  is  professedly  a  home-keeping,  home- 
loving  poet,  with  the  purpose  of  the  imagi- 
native realist,  depending  upon  common  sights 
and  sounds  for  his  inspirations,  and  en- 
grossed with  the  significance  of  facts.  Like 
Mr.  Kipling,  whose  idea  of  perpetual  bliss 

163 


IS  a  heaven  where  every  artist  shall  "  draw 
the  thing  as  he  sees  it,  for  the  God  of  things 
as  they  are,"  Mr.  Riley  exclaims: 

•*  Tell  of  the  things  jest  like  they  wuz  — 
They  don't  need  no  excuse ! 
Don't  tetch  'em  up  as  the  poets  does. 
Till  they're  all  too  fine  fer  use !  " 

And  again,  in  his  lines  on  ^'  A  Southern 
Singer": 

*'  Sing  us  back  home,  from  there  to  here  : 
Grant  your  high  grace  and  wit,  but  we 
Most  honour  your  simplicity." 

In  the  proem  to  the  volume  "  Poems  Here 
at  Home,"  there  occurs  a  similar  invocation, 
and  a  test  of  excellence  is  proposed  which 
may  well  be  taken  as  the  gist  of  his  own 
artistic  purpose: 

**  The  Poems  here  at  Home  !     Who'll  write  'em  down, 
Jes'  as  they  air  —  in  Country  and  in  Town  ?  — 
Sowed  thick  as  clods  is  'crost  the  fields  and  lanes, 
Er  these  'ere  little  hop-toads  when  it  rains  ! 
Who'll  'voice '  'em  ?  as  I  heerd  a  feller  say 
'At  speechified  on  Freedom,  t'other  day. 
And  soared  the  Eagle  tel,  it  'peared  to  me. 
She  wasn't  bigger' n  a  bumble-bee  ! 
164 


'*  What  We  want,  as  I  sense  it,  in  the  line 
O'  poetry  is  somepin*  Yours  and  Mine  — 
Somepin*  with  live-stock  in  it,  and  outdoors. 
And  old  crick-bottoms,  snags,  and  sycamores  ! 
Putt  weeds  in  —  pizenvines,  and  underbresh. 
As  well  as  johnny-jump-ups,  all  so  fresh 
And  sassy-like  !  —  and  groun'-squir'ls,  —  yes,  and  '  We,' 
As  say  in'  is,  —  *  We,  Us  and  Company.'  " 

In  the  lines  "  Right  Here  at  Home,"  the 
sanne  strain  recurs,  like  the  very  burden  of 
the  poet's  life-song: 

'*  Right  here  at  home,  boys,  is  the  place,  I  guess, 
Fer  me  and  you  and  plain  old  happiness  : 
We  hear  the  World's  lots  grander  —  likely  so,  — 
We'll  take  the  World's  word  for  it  and  not  go. 
We  know  tts  ways  ain't  our  ways,  so  we'll  stay 
Right  here  at  home,  boys,  where  we  know  the  way. 

**  Right  here  at  home,  boys,  where  a  well-to-do 
Man's  plenty  rich  enough  —  and  knows  it,  too, 
And's  got  a'  extry  dollar,  any  time. 
To  boost  a  feller  up  'at  zoants  to  climb, 
And's  got  the  git-up  in  him  to  go  in 
And  git  there^  like  he  purt'  nigh  alius  kin  !  '* 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  his  work,  the  telling  and  significant 
part  of  it,  is  conceived.     The  whole  tatter- 

165 


2Cfie  ^otivs  of  atfe 

demalion  company  of  his  Tugg  Martins,  Jap 
Millers,  Armazindys,  Bee  Fesslers,  and 
their  comrades,  as  rollicking  and  magnetic 
as  Shakespeare's  own  wonderful  populace, 
he  finds  "  right  here  at  home " ;  nothing 
human  is  alien  to  him;  indeed,  there  is 
something  truly  Elizabethan,  something  spa- 
cious and  robust  in  his  humanity,  quite  ex- 
ceptional to  our  fashion-plate  standards.  In 
the  same  wholesome,  glad  frame  of  mind, 
too,  he  deals  with  nature,  —  mingling  the 
keenest,  most  loving  observation  with  the 
most  familiar  modes  of  speech.  An  artist 
in  his  ever  sensitive  appreciation  and  impres- 
sionability, never  missing  a  phase  or  mood 
of  natural  beauty,  he  has  the  added  ability 
so  necessary  to  the  final  touch  of  illusion,  — 
the  power  of  ease,  the  power  of  making  his 
most  casual  word  seem  inevitable,  and  his 
most  inevitable  word  seem  casual.  It  is  in 
this,  I  think,  that  he  differs  from  all  his 
rivals  in  the  field  of  familiar  and  dialect 
poetry.     Other  writers  are  as  familiar  as  he, 

1 66 


and  many  as  truly  inspired;  but  none  com- 
bines to  such  a  degree  the  homespun  phrase 
with  the  lyric  feeling.  His  only  compeer 
in  this  regard  is  Lowell,  in  the  brilliant 
"  Biglow  Papers,"  and  several  other  less 
known  but  not  less  admirable  Chaucerian 
sketches  of  New  England  country  life.  In- 
deed, in  humour,  in  native  eloquence,  in 
vivacity,  Mr.  Riley  closely  resembles  Lowell, 
though  differing  from  that  bookman  in  his 
training  and  inclination,  and  naturally,  as 
a  consequence,  in  his  range  and  treatment 
of  subjects.  But  the  tide  of  humanity,  so 
strong  in  Lowell,  is  at  flood,  too,  in  the 
Hoosier  poet.  It  is  this  humane  character, 
preserving  all  the  rugged  sweetness  in  the 
elemental  type  of  man,  which  can  save 
us  at  last  as  a  people  from  the  ravaging 
taint  of  charlatanism,  frivolity,  and  gree'd. 

But  we  must  not  leave  our  subject  without 
discriminating  more  closely  between  several 
sorts  of  Mr.  Riley's  poetry;  for  there  is  as 
much  difference  between  his  dialect  and  his 

167 


tRfit  ^ottv^  of  aife 

classic  English  (in  point  of  poetic  excellence, 
I  mean)  as  there  is  between  the  Scotch  and 
the  English  of  Burns.  Like  Burns,  he  is  a 
lover  of  the  human  and  the  simple,  a  lover 
of  green  fields  and  blowing  flowers;  and, 
like  Burns,  he  is  more  at  home,  more  easy 
and  felicitous,  in  his  native  Doric  than  in  the 
colder  Attic  speech  of  Milton  and  Keats. 

This  is  so,  it  seems  to  me,  for  two  reasons. 
In  the  first  place,  the  poet  is  dealing  with  the 
subject  matter  he  knows  best;  and  in  the 
second  place,  he  is  using  the  medium  of 
expression  in  which  he  has  a  lifelong  facility. 
The  art  of  poetry  is  far  too  delicate  and  too 
difficult  to  be  practised  successfully  without 
the  most  consummate  and  almost  unconscious 
mastery  of  the  language  employed;  so  that 
a  poet  will  hardly  ever  write  with  anything 
like  distinction  or  convincing  force  in  any 
but  his  mother  tongue.  An  artist's  com- 
mand of  his  medium  must  be  so  intimate 
and  exquisite  that  his  thought  can  find  ade- 
quate  expression   in   it   as   easily   as   in   the 

i68 


lifting  of  a  finger  or  the  moving  of  an  eye- 
lid. Otherwise  he  is  self-conscious,  un- 
natural, false;  and,  hide  it  as  he  may,  we 
feel  the  awkwardness  and  indecision  in  his 
work.  He  who  treats  of  subjects  which  he 
knows  only  imperfectly  cannot  be  true  to 
nature;  while  he  who  employs  some  means 
of  expression  which  he  only  imperfectly 
controls  cannot  be  true  to  himself.  The  best 
art  requires  equally  the  fulfilment  of  both 
these  severe  demands;  they  are  the  cardinal 
virtues  of  art.  Disregard  of  the  first  pro- 
duces the  dilettante;  disregard  of  the  second 
produces  the  charlatan.  That  either  of  these 
epithets  would  seem  entirely  incongruous,  if 
applied  to  Mr.  Riley,  is  a  tribute  to  his 
thorough  worth  as  a  writer. 

His  verse,  then,  divides  itself  sharply  into 
two  kinds,  the  dialect  and  the  conventional. 
But  we  have  so  completely  identified  him 
with  the  former  manner  that  it  is  hard  to 
estimate  his  work  in  the  latter.  It  may  be 
doubted,  however,  whether  he  would  have 

169 


SCl^e  ^oettj?  of  mtt 

reached  his  present  eminence,  had  he  con- 
fined his  efforts  to  the  strictly  regulated 
forms  of  standard  English.  In  poems  like 
''  A  Life  Term  "  and  "  One  Afternoon,"  for 
instance,  there  is  smoothness,  even  grace  of 
movement,  but  hardly  that  distinction  which 
w^e  call  style,  and  little  of  the  lyric  plan- 
gency  the  author  commands  at  his  best; 
w^hile  very  often  in  his  use  of  authorized 
English  there  is  a  strangely  marked  reminis- 
cence of  older  poets,  as  of  Keats  in  "  A 
Water  Colour"  (not  to  speak  of  "A  Ditty 
of  No  Tone,"  written  as  a  frankly  imita- 
tive tribute  of  admiration  for  the  author 
of  the  "  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn  "),  or  of  Em- 
erson in  "The  All-kind  Mother."  In  only 
one  of  the  dialect  poems,  on  the  other  hand, 
so  far  as  I  recall  them,  is  there  any  imitative 
note.  His  "  Nothin'  to  Say  "  has  something 
of  the  atmosphere  and  feeling  as  well  as 
the  movement  of  Tennyson's  "  Northern 
Farmer."  But  for  the  most  part,  when  Mr. 
Riley  uses  his  own  dialect,  he  is  thoroughly 

170 


original  as  well  as  effective.  He  has  not  only 
the  lyrical  impetus  so  needful  to  good  po- 
etry; he  has  also  the  story-teller's  gift.  And 
when  we  add  to  these  two  qualities  an  abun- 
dant share  of  whimsical  humour,  we  have 
the  equipment  which  has  so  justly  given  him 
wide  repute. 

All  of  these  characteristics  are  brought 
into  play  in  such  poems  as  "  Fessler's  Bees," 
one  of  the  fairest  examples  of  Mr.  Riley's 
balladry  at  its  best: 

**  Might  call  him  a  bee-expert. 
When  it  come  to  handlin'  bees,  — 
Roll  the  sleeves  up  of  his.  shirt 
And  wade  in  amongst  the  trees 
Where  a  swarm  'u'd  settle,  and  — 
Blamedest  man  on  top  of  dirt  !  — 
Rake  *em  with  his  naked  hand 
Right  back  in  the  hive  ag'in, 
Jes'  as  easy  as  you  please  !  *' 

For  Mr.  Riley  is  a  true  balladist.  He  is 
really  doing  for  the  modern  popular  taste, 
here  and  now,  what  the  old  balladists  did 
in   their  time.     He   is   an   entertainer.      He 

171 


Ziit  ^otiv^  of  ILife 

has  the  ear  of  his  audience.  He  knows 
their  likes  and  dislikes,  and  humours  them. 
His  very  considerable  and  very  successful 
experience  as  a  public  reader  of  his  own 
work  has  reinforced  (one  may  guess)  his 
natural  modesty  and  love  of  people,  and 
made  him  constantly  regardful  of  their 
pleasure.  So  that  we  must  look  upon  his 
verses  as  a  most  genuine  and  spontaneous  ex- 
pression of  average  poetic  feeling  as  well 
as  personal  poetic  inspiration. 

Every  artist's  work  must  be,  necessarily, 
a  more  or  less  successful  compromise  be- 
tween these  two  opposing  and  difficult  con- 
ditions of  achievement.  The  great  artists 
are  they  who  succeed  at  last  in  imposing 
upon  others  their  own  peculiar  and  novel 
conceptions  of  beauty.  But  these  are  only 
the  few  whom  the  gods  favour  beyond  their 
fellows;  while  for  the  rank  and  file  of  those 
who  deal  in  the  perishable  wares  of  art  a 
less  ambitious  standard  may  well  be  allowed. 
We  must  have  our  balladists  as  well  as  our 

172 


bards,  it  seems;  and  very  fortunate  is  the 
day  whe(i  we  can  have  one  with  so  much 
real  spirit  and  humanity  about  him  as  Mr. 
Riley. 

At  times  the  pathos  of  the  theme  quite 
outweighs  its  homeliness,  and  lifts  the  author 
above  the  region  of  self-conscious  art;  the 
use  of  dialect  drops  away,  and  a  creation 
of  pure  poetry  comes  to  light,  as  in  that 
irresistible  elegy,  "  Little  Haly,''  for  ex- 
ample : 

«*  *  Little  Haly,  little  Haly,*  cheeps  the  robin  in  the  tree  ; 

*  Little  Haly,*  sighs  the  clover  ;  *  Little  Haly,'  moans  the  bee  ; 

*  Little  Haly,  little  Haly,'  calls  the  kill-dee  at  twilight  ; 
And  the  katydids  and  crickets  hollers  *  Haly '  all  the  night.** 

In  this  powerful  lyric  there  is  a  simple 
directness  approaching  the  feeling  of  Greek 
poetry,  and  one  cannot  help  regretting  the 
few  intrusions  of  dialect.  The  poem  is  so 
universal  in  its  human  appeal,  it  seems  a 
pity  to  limit  the  range  of  its  appreciation 
by  hampering  it  with  local  peculiarities  of 
speech. 

^73 


cue  ^ottvs  ot  a(ie 

At   times,    too,    in    his    interpretations    of 
J     nature,  Mr.  Riley  lays  aside  his  drollery  and 
his  drawling  accent  in  exchange  for  an  in- 
cisive power  of  phrase. 

**  The  wild  goose  trails  his  harrow** 

is  an  example  of  the  keenness  of  fancy  I 
refer  to.  Another  is  found  in  the  closing 
phrase  of  one  of  the  stanzas  in  "A  Country 
Pathway  " : 

**  A  puritanic  quiet  here  reviles 

The  almost  whispered  warble  from  the  hedge. 
And  takes  a  locust's  rasping  voice  and  files 
The  silence  to  an  edge." 

In  "The  Flying  Islands  of  the  Night" 
Mr.  Riley  has  made  his  widest  departure 
into  the  reign  of  whimsical  imagination. 
Here  he  has  retained  that  liberty  of  un- 
shackled speech,  that  freedom  and  ease 
of  diction,  which  mark  his  more  familiar 
themes,  and  at  the  same  time  has  entered 
an  entirely  fresh  field  for  him,  a  sort  of 
grown-up  fairyland.    There  are  many  strains 

174 


of  fine  poetry  in  this  miniature  play,  which 
show  Mi".  Riley's  lyrical  faculty  at  its  best. 
In  one  instance  there  is  a  peculiar  treat- 
ment of  the  octosyllabic  quatrain,  where  he 
has  chosen  to  print  it  in  the  guise  of  blank 
verse.  It  is  impossible,  however,  to  conceal 
the  true  swing  of  the  lines. 

•*  I  loved  her.      Why  ?     I  never  knew.     Perhaps 
Because  her  face  was  fair.     Perhaps  because 
Her  eyes  were  blue  and  wore  a  weary  air. 
Perhaps  !      Perhaps  because  her  limpid  face 
Was  eddied  with  a  restless  tide,  wherein 
The  dimples  found  no  place  to  anchor  and 
Abide.      Perhaps  because  her  tresses  beat 
A  froth  of  gold  about  her  throat,  and  poured 
In  splendour  to  the  feet  that  ever  seemed 
Afloat.     Perhaps  because  of  that  wild  way 
Her  sudden  laughter  overleapt  propriety; 
Or  —  who  will  say  ?  —  perhaps  the  way  she  wept." 

It  almost  seems  as  if  Mr.  Riley,  with  his 
bent  for  jesting  and  his  hahit  of  wearing 
the  cap  and  bells,  did  not  dare  be  as  poetical 
as  he  could;  and  when  a  serious  lyric  came 
to  him,  he  must  hide  it  under  the  least 
lyrical    appearance,    as    he    has    done    here. 

175 


8rj|^  H^ottvs  of  JLift 

But  that,  surely,  if  it  be  so,  is  a  great  injus- 
tice to  himself.  He  might  well  attempt  the 
serious  as  well  as  the  comic  side  of  poetry, 
remembering  that  "  when  half-gods  go,  the 
gods  arrive." 


176 


Mt.  SMnimnt*^  iloetrg 


It  is  never  very  wise  to  try  to  make  just 
estimates  of  our  contemporaries.  At  best,  we 
can  only  give  opinions  limited  by  our  angle 
of  outlook  and  coloured  by  the  atmosphere 
of  our  own  time.  This  must  be  particularly 
so  in  the  case  of  poetry,  for  the  reason  that 
poetry  makes  such  a  strong  appeal  to  our 
sympathies  and  is  never  a  matter  to  be 
judged  by  the  reason  alone. 

To  speak  of  Mr.  Swinburne  with  proper 
appreciation  one  must  go  back  to  the  early 
eighties,  when  his  wonderfifl  poetry  was 
taken  less  as  a  matter  of  course  than  it  is  now. 
Those  were  years  when  our  college  tasks 
were  interrupted  every  little  while  by  the 
appearance  of  some  new  volume  of  precious 

177 


Sifte  jpotttff  of  mtt 

poetry  by  Browning  or  Tennyson,  by  Morris 
or  Rossetti,  and  long  hours  would  be  spent 
in  eager,  delightful  reading.  Arnold,  it  is 
true,  had  ceased  to  write,  except  as  a  critic, 
but  his  name  and  personality  were  none  the 
less  touched  with  glamour,  his  work  none  the 
less  cherished.  The  sixth  of  the  immortals 
of  that  far-ofif  golden  age  was  the  author  of 
"  Atalanta  in  Calydon,"  and  in  some  ways  he 
was  the  most  compelling  of  them  all,  aston- 
ishing and  unrivalled  in  his  accomplish- 
ment. 

He  was  not  so  much  a  mentor  as  a  sorcerer, 
and  it  was  with  a  sort  of  divine  intoxication 
that  we  used  to  chant  '^  The  Triumph  of 
Time,"  "  The  Garden  of  Proserpine,"  the 
close  of  "  Anactoria,"  or  the  choruses  of 
"  Atalanta."  In  volume  and  magic  of  sound 
no  English  poet  had  ever  matched  these 
things,  it  seemed.  They  carried  us  away 
by  their  unexpected  splendour  of  diction, 
their  novel  and  incomparable  harmonies, 
their  noble  fervour.     They  came  upon  the 

178 


impressionable  ear  like  enchanted  strains 
from  seme  mysterious  land,  fabulous,  lonely, 
and  mournful,  yet  lovely  with  all  the  loveli- 
ness of  unforgotten  joy.  Their  sorrowful 
cadences,  their  sad  refrains,  their  pitiful 
sentiment,  appealed  to  the  wilful  melan- 
choly of  youth,  while  their  lofty  and  uncal- 
culating  radicalism  quickened  its  generosity. 
It  did  not  occur  to  us  in  those  days  that  re- 
straint was  any  part  of  perfection,  or  that 
these  miracles  of  poetic  artistry  would  have 
been  more  beautiful  had  they  been  less  reck- 
lessly diffuse.  At  least,  if  any  such  sus- 
picion ever  crossed  our  minds,  we  loyally 
put  it  aside. 

But  those  bright  days  of  romance  could 
not  last.  One  by  one  the  great  singers 
brought  their  work  to  a  close,  leaving  none 
to  take  their  places;  while* their  youthful 
admirers  heard  the  call  of  the  world,  and 
were  forced,  however  reluctantly,  to  go 
about  the  world's  business.  Then,  too,  there 
had  to  come  a  time  of  riper  judgment,  more 

179 


Z'^t  J&ottvs  of  Hift 

discriminating  appreciation,  more  exacting 
taste.  As  years  went  by  they  brought  a 
change  of  spiritual  and  mental  needs;  the 
sensuous  music  of  "  Poems  and  Ballads " 
grew  a  little  monotonous  and  unsatisfying 
in  our  ears,  and  failed  to  charm  us  as  it  had 
at  first.  What  the  reason  for  this  may  have 
been  who  shall  say?  In  the  cold  disillusion- 
ment of  an  age  of  prose  I  find  myself  won- 
dering whether  it  was  due  to  a  failure  of 
enthusiasm  in  ourselves,  or  whether  there  is 
really  an  inherent  deficiency  somewhere  in 
Mr.  Swinburne's  poetry  which  makes  it  in- 
capable of  holding  one  for  long.  Poetry  at 
its  best,  like  all  art  at  its  best,  must  surely 
be  a  thing  of  such  power  as  to  sway  men  and 
women  of  all  conditions  and  requirements 
with  more  than  a  passing  influence.  Its 
J  hold  must  be  permanent,  its  zest  perennial, 
while  its  subtle  power  to  move  us  must  pre- 
vail against  the  slowly  benumbing  frost  of 
time.  Poetry  which  falls  short  of  these 
demands,  which  charms  us  for  a  time  and 

1 80 


then  can  charm  us  no  more,  which  brings  our 
senses  under  the  spell  of  its  enchantment, 
but  in  the  end  fails  to  answer  our  rational 
questions,  can  hardly  be  called  poetry  of 
the  first  order. 

Brought  to  the  test  of  judicial  question- 
ing, much  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  poetry  is  J 
found  to  fail  in  this  respect.  At  least  so  it 
must  seem  to  many  of  his  admirers,  I  fancy. 
And  while  they  must  for  ever  be  gratified 
for  the  delight  which  he  gave  them,  they 
must  somewhat  sorrowfully  admit  that  he 
can  give  the  same  delight  no  longer,  —  that 
while  the  beautiful  masterpieces  of  other 
great  Victorians  are  as  potent  as  of  old, 
his  have  somehow  lost  their  charm.  Why  is 
it  that  "  The  Scholar  Gipsy  "  and  "  Thyrsis  " 
continue  to  allure  us,  while  "  Ave  atque 
Vale"  appeals  to  us  almost  ^n  vain?  And 
why  do  we  grow  weary  of  "  A  Forsaken 
Garden,"  while  the  simpler  measures  of 
"The  Neckan"  and  "The  Forsaken  Mer- 
man "  still  move  us  profoundly  with  their 

i8i 


pathos  and  romance?  How  is  it  we  can  read 
again  and  again  "  Tristram  and  Iseult/' 
''Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,"  '' Fra  Lippo  Lippi," 
and  "  Sohrab  and  Rustum,"  and  hardly  once 
care  to  turn  to  "  Tristram  of  Lyonesse,"  or 
"The  Last  Oracle,"  or  ''Delores"?  Why 
do  not  the  familiar  words  enchant  us  as 
they  did?  How  have  the  charm  and  potency 
and  conviction  escaped  from  the  verse? 
Must  we  conclude  that  all  Mr.  Swinburne's 
passionate  reverberance  is  not  comparable  to 
"  the  surge  and  thunder  of  the  Odyssey," 
after  all? 
What  makes  this  difference?  I  have  an 
V  idea  that  this  poetry  never  was  quite  as 
great  as  it  seemed  to  us.  Youth  is  full  of 
ideals,  it  is  true,  but  it  is  also  much  taken 
up  with  the  senses.  It  does  not  often  demand 
a  convincing  reason,  or  look  for  truth  be- 
neath appearances.  The  sensuous  beauties  of 
the  world,  the  obvious  sensuous  beauties  of 
art,  appeal  to  it.  And  if  there  is  one  quality 
which    Mr.    Swinburne's   poetry   always   ex- 

182 


hibits,  it  is  sensuous  beauty,  beauty  of  form. 
You  may  repeat  the  stanzas  beginning, — 

**  O  fair  green-girdles  mother  of  mine. 
Sea,  that  art  clothed  with  the  sun  and  the  rain,**  — 

or  that  incomparable  chorus, — 

**  Before  the  beginning  of  years 

There  came  to  the  making  of  man,'*  — 

until  the  whole  world  seems  made  out  of 
poetry,  so  splendid  and  compelling  is  the 
fabric  of  the  verse,  so  free  and  sincere  and 
impassioned  its  headlong  flow.  Yet  how 
easily  it  becomes  redundant! 

There,  I  believe,  is  the  essential  flaw  in  ^ 
this  masterly  poet's  work.  He  is,  if  we  may 
judge,  a  man  of  unbounded  exuberance,  of 
unbridled  enthusiasm;  he  knows  no  modera- 
tion nor  restraint;  he  is  all  superlative, 
always  excessive ;  he  will  <  never  use  an 
adjective  where  he  can  possibly  use  two; 
he  is  never  satisfied  with  a  perfect  line  with- 
out wanting  to  duplicate  it.  From  a  single 
poetic  thought  he  will  brew  a  barrel  of  ver- 

183 


biage.  He  seems  never  to  have  compre- 
hended the  value  of  economy  in  art.  It 
never  has  occurred  to  him  that  reiteration  is 
almost  always  a  mark  of  weakness.  He  has 
never  perceived  what  power  there  is  in  being 
concise.  He  is,  as  was  said  of  Gladstone, 
"  intoxicated  with  the  exuberance  of  his 
own  verbosity,"  and  can  never  be  quenched 
as  long  as  there  is  an  adjective  left  in  the 
dictionary.  He  must  exhaust  the  very  re- 
sources of  language  before  he  will  desist. 
The  blunder  is  fatal.  It  is  a  juvenile  error 
which  a  little  judgment  ought  surely  to  have 
corrected,  but  one  which  Mr.  Swinburne  has 
never  outgrown.  All  of  his  later  work,  like 
his  earlier,  suffers  from  this  redundancy  of 
expression,  this  lax  and  indiscriminate  ex- 
aggeration. So  indulgent  has  he  been  of  his 
native  talent  that  there  are  scarcely  half  a 
dozen  of  his  poems  that  would  not  gain  by 
pruning  and  condensation.  With  the  great 
mass  of  his  work,  of  course,  no  such  amend- 
ing could  be  possible.     Its  blemishes  are  too 

184 


inherent.  His  genius  itself  is  too  diffuse  and 
ungovernable  ever  to  submit  to  those  nice 
limitations  which  perfection  in  any  art  re- 
quires of  the  artist.  You  may  open  him 
almost  at  random  and  find  examples  of  his 
besetting  sin.  For  instance,  you  may  turn  to 
"March:  An  Ode,"  and  read  the  first 
line,  — 

**  Ere  frost  flower  and  snow  blossom  faded  and  fell,  and  the 
splendour  of  Winter  had  passed  out  of  sight,'* — 

and  feel  yourself  still  in  the  presence  of  the 
same  sonorous  voice  that  first  sounded  in 
the  "  Poems  and  Ballads,"  though  with  just 
a  suspicion  of  weakness.  Before  you  reach 
the  foot  of  the  page,  however,  you  come 
upon  the  line, — 

"That  the  sea  was  not  lovelier  than  here  was  the  land,  nor 

the  night  than  the  day,  nor  the  day  than  the  night,**  — 

i 

and  at  once  feel  that  all  force  has  evaporated 
from  the  poem.  "  Nor  the  night  than  the 
day,  nor  the  day  than  the  night"  —  what 
pitiable  bathos,  what  tawdry  ineptitude! 

185 


JKfte  ^ottvs  of  aife 

Yet,  to  speak  severely,  he  has  hardly  writ- 
ten a  page  that  is  entirely  free  from  any  such 
meaningless  superfluity  of  words.  His  very 
facility  has  been  his  undoing.  This  great 
copiousness  of  language,  while  at  first  indic- 
ative of  abundance  of  power,  produces  in 
the  end  a  sense  of  incompetence  and  vapid- 
ity. Incontinence  is  a  mark  of  feebleness, 
not  of  force,  and  implies  inefficiency  or 
decrepitude.  In  art,  as  in  life,  too  much 
is  as  bad  as  too  little.  Only  within  the 
range  of  the  golden  mean  is  perfection  pos- 
sible. In  all  of  Mr.  Swinburne's  work,  in 
his  prose  as  well  as  his  poetry,  we  cannot 
help  feeling  his  lack  of  balance,  his  lack  of 
real  enduring  power.  He  seems  to  be  led 
away  by  every  new  combination  of  words 
that  suggests  itself  to  his  ear;  he  cannot 
light  upon  a  happy  phrase  without  wanting 
to  repeat  it  in  a  slightly  different  form.  He 
has  a  passion  for  proficiency  rather  than 
perfection,  and  is  always  betrayed  into  over- 
statement.    It  cannot  be  said  of  his  poetry 

1 86 


that  he  writes  without  inspiration,  nor  of  his 
prose  that  he  writes  without  insight;  but  it 
must  often  be  said  that  he  writes  without 
judgment.  He  has  passion,  indeed,  a  noble 
passion,  for  human  liberty,  but  a  passion  so 
intemperate  that  it  is  more  like  the  hysteria 
of  the  invalid  than  the  divine  frenzy  of  the 
oracle. 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  a  man  of  such 
genius  should  never  have  learned  the  value 
of  moderation,  that  prime  requisite  of  beauty. 
For  perfection  lies  on  the  magic  boundary 
between  deficiency  and  excess,  and  can  no 
more  reside  in  the  one  than  in  the  other. 
Successful  art,  like  successful  life,  must  be  ^ 
modulated,  modelled,  limited,  bounded, 
directed.  The  flawless  line  of  the  statue 
appears  only  when  the  superfluous  marble 
has  been  cut  away.  Without  modulation 
all  crude  native  force  must  lose  half  its 
effectiveness  and  be  dissipated  in  irrelevancy, 
whether  it  is  manifesting  itself  in  nature, 
in  society,  or  in  art.     It  is  not  enough  that 

187 


poetic  inspiration  should  be  spontaneous 
and  plentiful  in  any  given  instance,  it  must 
be  regulated,  controlled,  and  tempered  by 
logic,  before  it  can  wholly  serve  the  best 
purposes  of  poetry. 

Again,  all  art,  and  particularly  the  art  of 
poetry,  must  not  only  be  restrained  and  free 
from  excess;  it  must  be  balanced  in  all 
its  essentials;  it  must  devote  itself  to  satisfy- 
ing our  curiosity  as  well  as  playing  upon  our 
emotions  and  charming  our  senses.  It  must 
help  to  satiate  our  love  of  truth,  our  desire 
for  knowledge,  our  longing  for  a  reasonable 
explanation  of  the  universe,  at  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  measure  that  it  helps  to 
satisfy  our  love  of  sensuous  beauty  and  all 
the  generous  aspirations  of  the  spirit.  Poetry 
has  obligations,  in  other  words,  not  only  to 
the  fastidious  taste  and  the  inflammable 
heart  of  the  reader,  but  to  his  clear  reason  as 
well.  These  latter  requirements  the  poetry 
of  Mr.  Swinburne  fails  to  meet.  Poetry, 
indeed,  must  not  smack  of  philosophy,  yet 

1 88 


every  poet  must  have  a  philosophy  of  his 
own,  and  that  philosophy  must  be  inherent 
and  discoverable  in  his  w^ork.  In  poetry  of 
the  first  order  the  philosophic  pith  is  sig- 
nificant and  valuable.  In  less  important 
poetry  it  is  insignificant  and  of  little  v^orth, 
either  because  it  is  trite,  or  because  it  is  false, 
or  because  it  is  vague  or  fantastic. 

Some  such  reason  as  this,  if  I  am  not  mis- 
taken, lies  at  the  root  of  Mr.  Swinburne's 
comparative  failure  as  a  poet  —  his  failure 
to  reach  that  influential  place  in  current 
literature  which  his  great  gifts  would  have 
otherwise  entitled  him  to  hold.  For  while 
we  all  gladly  acknowledge  his  eminence,  we 
must  also  regretfully  admit  the  slightness  of 
his  hold  on  the  regard  of  his  age.  He  has 
been  belauded  and  revered  as  a  master  by 
all  lovers  of  technique;  he<  has  failed  to<^ 
make  himself  felt  as  a  power  in  his  genera- 
tion. For  all  his  splendid  achievement  he 
pipes  to  us  in  vain.  He  does  not  touch  the 
heart    of    the    multitude    as    Tennyson    and 

189 


8C1^e  ^ottvs  of  ILift 

Longfellow  touched  it;  he  does  not  stimu- 
late thought  and  satisfy  our  mental  unrest 
as  Browning  did;  he  has  none  of  Arnold's 
clarity  and  repose.  He  fills  the  ear  without 
feeding  the  mind,  and  we  turn  away  in 
disappointment  from  his  resonant  but  empty 
dithyrambs. 

All  these  ungracious  things  must  only  be 
said,  of  course,  in  the  interest  of  the  severest 
criticism,  in  an  attempt,  which  is  perhaps 
futile,  after  all,  to  judge  the  poetry  of  our 
own  day  in  comparison  with  the  greatest 
poetry  of  all  time.  And  they  may  be  said, 
I  hope,  without  any  detriment  to  Mr.  Swin- 
burne's fame.  For,  in  spite  of  all  detrac- 
tions, he  remains  one  of  the  chief  ornaments 
of  the  Victorian  age  of  poetry,  that  is  to  say, 
one  of  the  illustrious  poets  of  the  world.  As 
a  wizard  of  versification,  a  startling  and 
magnificent  artist,  he  remains  without  a 
rival. 


190 


Cije  UtWatiiQ  of  iloetrg 


(A  Letter  to  the  Lyric  Muse  from  an  Im- 
aginary  Correspondent.) 

It  is  now  more  than  a  year,  my  dear  mis- 
tress, since  my  last  poem  was  written.  As 
I  was  wont  to  be  so  unfailingly  diligent  in 
your  service,  my  conscience  tells  me  I  should 
attempt  to  explain  the  long  silence,  for  I 
truly  feel  that  somehow  there  has  been  a 
breach  of  duty  on  my  part,  a  failure  to  live 
up  to  my  own  sense  of  what<is  becoming,  if 
not  to  meet  your  gentle  illumined  expecta- 
tions. 

Perhaps  it  has  not  seemed  long  to  you; 
perhaps  you  have  not  even  been   aware  of 

191 


the  cessation  of  my  devoted  endeavours,  nor 
missed  my  customary  offerings  at  all.  To 
me,  however,  the  time  has  seemed  heavy  and 
interminable,  and  I  have  only  borne  it,  I  am 
sorry  to  admit,  w^ith  grievous  vexation  and 
a  rebellious  heart.  It  has  been  a  bitter  and 
profitless  year  of  estrangement.  Had  I  felt 
that  it  was  the  result  of  your  displeasure, 
that  you  had  purposely  withdrawn  your 
favour  from  me,  that  I  was  being  chastised 
like  a  loved  but  erring  child  in  need  of 
discipline,  I  think  I  could  have  endured  the 
separation,  the  lonesomeness,  the  defeat,  with 
a  comparatively  equal  mind.  But  that  cir- 
cumstances and  conditions  alone  should  have 
been  the  cause  of  this  apparent  neglect,  is 
the  fact  that  makes  my  unhappiness  so 
sombre  and  sincere.  Our  life,  it  seems,  is 
never  what  we  will,  but  always  a  hurried 
compromise  with  the  inexorable  drift  of 
events,  and  we  go  forward  through  time  and 
the  tangle  of  affairs  as  a  canoe  goes  upward 
through  the  headlong  brawling  rapids  of  a 

192 


2ri^f  sairUiartrs^  of  pottts 

stream  to  the  far-lying  uncertain  reaches  of 
success  between  the  meadows  of  content- 
ment. 

You  who  live  constantly  in  the  quiet  open 
light  of  ideals,  like  a  dweller  among  lofty 
mountains  where  the  air  is  always  serene, 
very  likely  forget  sometimes  how  it  must 
fare  with  unfortunate  mortals  on  the  earth, 
forced  to  snatch  a  perilous  livelihood  in  the 
bewildering  hubbub  of  modern  times.  With 
your  radiant  beauty,  your  perennial  youth, 
your  unconquerable  joyousness,  your  calm 
and  happy  wisdom,  I  dare  say  it  has  escaped 
your  notice  that  the  world  has  grown  old 
since  the  golden  age  of  Hellas,  when  Mar- 
syas  piped  from  the  riverside  and  Pan 
responded  from  the  rugged  hills.  That 
was  before  the  blight  of  modernity,  "  the 
strange  disease  called  modern  life,"  had 
fallen  upon  men.  Life  was  lived  in  many 
w^ays  more  sanely  then  than  now,  even 
though  the  range  of  knowledge  was  less 
unlimited  than  ours.     The  people  of  those 

193 


8C1fte  ^ottvs  of  JLHt 

days  surpassed  us  in  tKe  fortunate  conduct 
of  their  lives,  —  in  securing  a  just  poise  of 
existence,  in  making  all  their  endeavours 
subserve  the  great  purpose  of  happiness. 
They  knew  well  that  there  is  one  thing  more 

irnportant  than  to  be  strenuous,  and  that  is 

^  ■  '  III     »«. 

jo  be  glad.  It  is  true  we  have  far  out- 
stripped them  in  conquering  the  forces  of 
the  earth  and  the  secrets  of  science.  Our 
resources  of  wealth  and  knowledge  are  truly 
almost  incredible;  and  yet  we  seem  almost 
powerless  to  convert  them  into  enjoyment; 
and  our  modern  world  lies  in  a  vast  turmoil 
of  excitement,  battle,  and  doubt,  beneath  un- 
lifting  clouds  of  hesitation  and  dismay. 
We  wear  out  our  hearts  and  brains  in  the 
ceaseless  fret  of  affairs,  and  grow  gray  be- 
fore our  time;  yet  seldom  reach  the  goal  of 
all  ambition,  —  one  simple  hour  of  joy. 

This  sorry  plight  of  the  world,  I  say,  you 
may  never  have  observed.  For  when  you 
do  come  among  men,  and  visit  any  mortal 
with  the  inspiration  of  your  gracious  pres- 

194 


2ri^e  Xlebia^rtrs^  of  ^ottvs 

ence,  he  is  at  once  transfigured.  He  is  no 
longer,  one  of  the  average  company  of 
humans,  but  a  radiant  being,  possessed  and 
gay,  and  even  wise.  So  that  to  you,  behold- 
ing his  happiness,  it  must  seem  that  all  men 
are  happy,  that  the  earth  is  immortally  fair, 
and  that  the  life  of  mortals  has  suffered  no 
change,  no  deterioration,  as  the  centuries 
have  gone  by. 

I  am  sure  that  is  true  in  our  own  case. 
When  I  first  loved  you,  it  was  not  even 
necessary  that  my  sentiment  should  be  re- 
turned, since  I  was  filled  with  it  as  a  lamp 
is  filled  with  flame,  and  all  the  dark  of  the 
room  is  illumined  even  though  no  watcher  is 
by.  You  did  not  need  to  favour  me;  my 
own  infatuation  was  enough  to  change  the 
face  of  nature;  and  when  I  approached  your 
shrine  with  my  first  offerings  and  supplica- 
tions, so  precious  in  their  origin,  so  trivial 
in  themselves,  you  must  have  beheld  a  mortal 
almost  transfigured  by  one  touch  of  the 
great   passion   which   your   piercing   beauty 

195 


SClje  ^otivp  of  %tn 

arouses.  Doubtless  in  me,  as  in  so  many  be- 
fore me,  you  took  the  exception  for  the 
average,  and  judged  the  whole  world  was 
still  young.     I  thought  it  so  myself. 

Alas,  that  was  not  the  whole  truth!  For 
while  the  elation  of  love  made  weariness 
seem  a  fable,  and  the  age  of  the  universe 
a  myth,  the  actual  signs  of  failure  and  un- 
happiness  were  abroad,  had  we  but  had  eyes 
to  perceive  them,  sprung  from  seeds  of 
sorrow  and  decrepitude  sown  long  ago. 
But  we  were  as  blind  as  crazy  happy  lovers 
always  are,  and  never  guessed  that  the 
actual  world  could  be  different  from  our 
iridescent  vision,  or  that  people  could  actu- 
ally be  tainted  with  anxiety  and  terror  and 
care. 

It  did  not  matter  to  me  then.  It  does  not 
matter  to  you  now.  In  your  immortal  life, 
dear  angel  of  joy,  there  is  neither  age  nor 
care  nor  the  shadow  of  grief.  Others  will 
come  to  you,  in  the  long,  unfailing  years, 
with   songs   as   fresh    and   a   thousand   times 

196 


2ri^(  3fteUiattri^  of  ^oetts 

more  worthy  than  mine,  and  win  your  im- 
mortal .love  with  the  exigency  of  their  mor- 
tal needs.  Yet  few  will  come  beneath  your 
spell  with  a  rapture  more  genuine,  a  joy 
more  unquestioning,  than  carried  me  away 
in  those  youthful  perished  summers  of  the 
North.  How  could  I  know,  then,  the  truth 
of  the  world,  being  so  full  of  the  truth  of 
your  unworldliness? 

Did  it,  indeed,  seem  to  you  in  those  old 
days,  when  I  haunted  your  door  with  all  the 
folly  of  a  mortal  lover,  all  the  fervour  of  an 
immortal,  that  the  whole  earth  was  fervent 
and  bewitched,  —  a  lovely  illimitable  gar- 
den of  dalliance  and  dream?  Let  me  tell 
you  it  is  only  when  we  mortals  are  in  love 
that  we  share  in  your  divinity,  only  while  we 
are  under  the  domination  of  your  inspired 
ideals  of  tenderness  and  beauty,  that  we  put 
off  for  a  time  many  unlovely  traits.  In  this 
life  we  lead  upon  earth,  I  must  remind  you, 
there  are  pitiful  sorrows,  blighting  disap- 
pointments, senseless  accidents,  blunders,  dis- 

197 


eases,  annihilations,  and  countless  forms  of 
envy,  hatred,  malice,  cruelty,  and  greed. 
We  live  and  strive  and  have  our  being  in 
ways  too  ghastly  and  revolting  for  you  to 
imagine.  We  do  so,  I  suppose,  because  of 
those  unlovely  characteristics  we  have  de- 
rived from  our  inhuman  ancestry,  an  inherit- 
ance from  worse  than  barbarous  times,  the 
vast  chaotic  aeons  of  tooth  and  claw;  and 
we  are  willing  to  continue  doing  so,  I  sup- 
pose, because  our  faith  in  our  better  instincts, 
our  intuitions  derived  from  beings  like  your- 
self, is  so  timid  as  yet,  so  poor  and  feeble 
and  frail.  In  war  we  strew  the  lovely  earth 
with  ruin  and  with  death,  struggling  among 
ourselves  for  the  possession  of  lands,  as 
children  struggle  and  push  one  another  in 
the  face  for  the  possession  of  an  apple  or  a 
candy  dog.  In  peace,  throughout  all  the 
activities  of  modern  life,  our  behaviour  is 
even  worse,  being  more  underhand  and 
mean;  we  follow  a  code,  our  business  code, 
whose  iniquities  are  no  less  ruthless  and  vile, 

198 


though  more  devious  and  concealed  than 
the  flagrant  cruelties  of  the  code  of  war. 
These  things  are  so  common  among  us 
that  they  cause  no  remark.  To  you,  how- 
ever, should  you  contemplate  them,  they 
would  appear  unbelievable  in  their  folly. 
Even  to  those  who  have  once  come  within 
the  sway  of  your  pure  intelligence,  their 
enormity  seems  appalling. 

Indeed,  when  any  mortal  has  ever  felt  the 
benediction  of  your  spiritual  influence,  to 
however  small  a  degree,  and  known  the  love 
of  beauty  and  the  desire  for  truth  which  your 
friendship  always  instils,  he  can  never  again 
be  quite  insensible  to  the  dangerous  insanity 
and  animosity  of  his  fellows,  but  must 
always  tread  warily  through  life,  fearful 
that  at  any  moment  the  chimera  of  human 
perversity  may  turn  and  deetroy  him.  So 
that  to  have  been  a  devotee  of  your  innocent 
cult  in  his  youth  is  not  the  best  preparation 
a  man  can  have  for  success,  as  the  world 
reckons  success,  since  it  gives  him  a  tinge 

199 


ffiifte  ^ottvs  of  mtt 

of  idealism  that  must  always  aifterward 
colour  his  thoughts  and  deflect  his  judgment. 
A  man  who  has  loved  poetry  when  he  was 
young,  will  not  be  likely,  when  he  grows 
up,  to  love  money  with  that  absorbing  single- 
ness of  heart  which  alone  can  establish  his 
position  among  our  respectable  church- 
members. 

For  the  God  of  the  world  is  a  jealous  God, 
and  tolerates  no  divided  allegiance  in  his 
worshippers.  To  those  who  wear  his  badge, 
and  toil  without  ceasing  to  gather  riches  in 
his  name,  he  grants  many  and  great  rewards, 
—  lands,  houses,  raiment,  rich  foods,  horses, 
automobiles,  railroads,  senatorships,  divi- 
dends, and  cushioned  seats  in  his  own  fash- 
ionable houses,  where  dreary  ministers  arise 
to  promulgate  the  monstrous  cant  of  a  false 
Christianity.  But  to  those  who  have  ever 
in  the  rashness  of  youth  dared  to  scorn  the 
enticements  of  Mammon,  and  have  turned 
their  faces  to  you  in  a  credulous  search  for 
goodness,  the  God  of  this  world  is  relentless. 

200 


SCJie  MeUia^trtri^  of  poetry 

You  will  know,  however,  dear  Beauty, 
that  wKile  I  mock  with  sincerity,  I  remain 
without  bitterness.  If  you  cannot  compre- 
hend the  perplexity  of  living  the  poetic  life 
in  a  world  so  topsyturvy  as  men's  inordinate 
greed  has  made  it,  you  can  certainly  under- 
stand the  indifference  to  small  adversities 
which  all  your  followers  must  feel.  Passing, 
in  the  public  eye,  for  slightly  demented 
creatures,  harmless  enthusiasts,  impractical 
visionaries,  they  are  content  with  immunity, 
if  only  it  may  be  allowed  them,  and  happy 
enough  with  the  inward  irridiation  which 
the  joy  of  your  companionship  brings.  Un- 
burdened by  the  distractions  of  worldly 
eminence,  they  are  free  to  behold  the  pageant 
of  life  not  only  without  envy  but  with 
sympathy  and  sometimes  with  understand- 
ing. Moreover,  vituperation  mends  no  mis- 
takes. 

To  those  who  have  never  known  you  it 
must  be  a  constant  source  of  wonder  what 
the  rewards  of  poetry  can  be  to  induce  any 

20I 


sane  person  to  give  it  even  the  devotion  of  a 
day.  That  one  could  follow  it  for  a  life- 
time must  seem  like  the  wildest  lunacy. 
Indeed,  there  are  times,  hours  of  dreariness 
and  dejection,  in  which  for  some  cause  or 
other  you  appear  to  have  deserted  me,  when 
I  almost  share  that  popular  incredulity,  and 
myself  indulge  in  the  blasphemy  of  doubt. 
Many  expensive  pleasures  in  which  people 
find  enjoyment,  or  at  least  diversion,  I  can 
readily  forego;  they  seem  to  me  a  very  dull 
way  of  killing  time;  but  when  it  comes  to 
the  actual  pinch  of  necessity,  —  when  I 
have  had  to  pawn  my  cuff-links  for  a  car- 
fare, or  when  I  have  not  had  the  price  of  a 
smoke  in  my  pocket,  I  confess  to  you,  I  have 
been  filled  with  something  more  acrid  than 
"  the  ignoble  melancholy  of  pecuniary  em- 
barrassment." A  smouldering  fury  of  resent- 
ment consumes  my  fastidious  soul  on  such 
occasions;  even  the  humourous  incongruity 
of  the  occasion  fails  to  rouse  me;  and  I 
begin    to    comprehend    that    blundering    in- 

202 


sue  iXtin^vXfn  of  i^oetrs 

stinct   for   revolution   which   makes   savages 
in  the  midst  of  civilization. 

I  am  afraid  in  this  regard  I  have  not  the 
fine  superiority  to  circumstance  which  was 
so  conspicuous  a  trait  in  a  vanished  comrade 
of  mine,  who  could  remain  imperturbable  un- 
der the  petty  annoyances  of  low  finance.  He 
seemed  to  perceive  that  the  necessity  was 
a  matter  of  course,  and  that  it  was  enough 
to  be  a  poet  without  wanting  to  be  a  million- 
aire as  well.  I  have  always  admired  that 
stable  courage  in  him,  which  could  accept 
things  as  they  are,  and  never  fretted  over  the 
fact  that  the  rewards  of  poetry  and  the 
rewards  of  the  world  are  different  and  not 
always  convertible.  You  may  wait,  I  fear, 
for  several  generations  before  you  find 
another  poet  who  will  devote  himself  more 
whole-heartedly  to  your  service,  and  will 
accept  the  conditions  of  life  with  so  wise  a 
resignation  as  he  habitually  showed,  with  so 
unspoiled  a  temper,  and  a  disposition  so  un- 


203 


2rj)^  ^ottvs  of  affe 

embittered     by     the     tedious,     discouraging 
career  of  an  artist  in  letters. 

It  is  not  always  a  comfortable  road  that 
your  devotees  have  to  follow.  Though  it 
is  wide  enough  and  easy  to  trace,  with  joys 
of  a  rare  sort  here  and  there,  it  has  many 
solitary  stretches  barren  of  consolation.  At 
its  outset  there  is  an  enticing  glamour  hang- 
ing over  it,  very  alluring  to  the  strong  and 
young,  but,  in  sober  truth,  few  roads  require 
more  resolution  in  the  traveller.  It  is  so  easy 
to  set  out  for  your  fabled  and  dazzling 
shrine;  all  that  the  adventurer  needs  is  a 
pencil  and  pad  and  a  vacant  afternoon. 
With  this  slight  equipment,  the  immemorial 
daring  of  his  tribe  tells  him,  he  can  conquer 
fame  and  carry  your  glory  in  triumph  above 
the  crowd.  But  after  a  few  years  upon  the 
way,  he  realizes  that  all  he  has  are  the  pad 
(slightly  diminished),  the  pencil  (a  little 
worn  down),  and  the  vacant  afternoon 
(radiant  still,  but  seemingly  not  so  long  as 
it  used  to  be) ;    and  your  shining  temple  as 

204 


far  away  as  ever.  Meanwhile  the  cakes  and 
ale  have  not  been  overabundant,  and  h6  is 
lucky  if  he  has  a  clear  conscience  and  sound 
courage  to  show  after  his  many  days  of  dusty 
wayfaring. 

Nearly  twenty  years  ago  now,  a  young 
man  at  Harvard  began  to  give  his  days  to 
the  cultivation  of  poetry,  infatuated  by  the 
glamour  of  your  fame  and  beauty,  and  tasted 
the  first-fruits  of  ambition  when  a  string 
of  his  verses  appeared  in  The  Atlantic,  your 
favourite  periodical.  Since  then  he  has  had 
little  other  occupation  than  to  do  your  will 
and  preach  your  worship  in  the  world.  One 
would  suppose  that  in  that  time  he  might 
have  achieved  a  position  of  some  substance 
and  security,  such  as  men  in  other  profes- 
sions attain  in  half  the  time.  Such  is  hardly 
the  case,  however.  Only  a  few  months  ago, 
after  being  out  of  town  for  the  summer,  he 
called  at  the  office  of  that  friend  and  pro- 
tector of  many  of  your  votaries,  the  inestima- 
ble Runnels,  to  inquire  how  his  manuscripts 

205 


had  fared  in  his  absence  in  their  rounds  of 
the  editorial  rooms. 

"  Well/'  said  Runnels,  "  here  is  one  poem 
that  has  been  to  —  let  me  see  —  one,  two, 
three,  four,  seventeen  places.  Here  is  an- 
other that  has  been  to  twenty-three.  And 
here  is  a  third  one  that  has  come  back  from 
twenty-nine  editorial  visits.  I  think  perhaps 
you  had  better  take  them  yourself,  and  see 
what  you  can  do  with  them." 

Not  a  very  encouraging  prospect!  Yet  I 
can  never  repine.  The  compensation  of 
having  known  your  companionship  out- 
weighs with  me  all  other  considerations. 
Only,  I  would  not  have  any  one  fancy  that 
your  service,  perfect  freedom  though  it  is, 
is  also  a  perfect  picnic.  If  any  young  gentle- 
man is  bent  on  becoming  the  poet  of  the 
future,  the  position  is  open,  the  applicants 
are  few,  but  his  credit  at  the  bank  of  pa- 
tience must  be  unlimited,  for  he  will  have 
to  draw  on  it  heavily  and  often. 

The  poet's  relation  to  the  world  is  not  very 
206 


often  a  happy  one,  unless,  like  our  friend 
Horace,  he  is  blessed  with  a  joyous  pene- 
trating* interest  in  the  lighter  side  of  society. 
Even  that  delightful  Roman  would  have 
fared  ill,  I  dare  say,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
comfortable  estate  of  Maecenas.  But  we 
have  come  far  away  from  those  times;  the 
artist  has  grown  proud  of  his  vocation  under 
the  growth  of  democracy,  and  is  not  to  be 
patronized  any  more.  I  cannot  say  that  I 
blame  him.  And  yet,  if  you  look  at  the  fine 
arts  as  a  whole,  you  perceive  that  to  be  free 
and  beautiful  they  must  be  independent  of 
the  market  to  some  extent.  Just  how  that  is 
to  be  done,  each  artist  has  to  determine  for 
himself,  and  in  the  very  solving  of  the  diffi- 
culty he  establishes  his  kinship  with  this 
struggling  world  of  men,  and  gains,  I  must 
believe,  strength  and  understanding  in  the 
contest,  —  if  it  be  not  too  hopeless  and  too 
long. 

There  has  lately  been  a  good  deal  of  dis- 
cussion of  a  possible  decline  in  the  taste  for 

207 


poetry.  Whether  or  not  poetry  is  less  widely 
read  than  it  used  to  be,  is  difficult  to  say.  I 
notice  one  thing,  however,  which  gives  me 
grave  fears  for  the  supremacy  in  which 
high  poetry  was  once  held.  There  are  no 
old  poets  any  more,  no  men  of  assured  genius 
and  achievement  continuing  their  labours 
with  unabated  zeal.  Scores  begin  their  am- 
bitious careers  as  your  followers;  almost  none 
persist  in  their  calling  beyond  early  middle 
life,  no  matter  how  authentic  their  inspira- 
tion may  have  seemed.  Men,  if  I  may  name 
them,  like  Mr.  Aldrich,  Mr.  Dobson,  Mr. 
Lang,  Mr.  Stedman,  Mr.  Gosse,  —  why  do 
they  pipe  no  longer  in  your  honour?  Did 
they  not  love  your  art?  Have  they  not 
proved  themselves  genuine  and  worthy  up- 
holders of  your  best  traditions?  Yes,  indeed! 
How  comes  it,  then,  that  they  are  silent? 
The  time  was  when  every  year  or  two  would 
see  a  new  volume  of  poems  from  one  of  them 
or  another,  yet  now  they  seem  to  belong  to  an 
age  that  is  past.     It  is  not  that  they  are  old, 

208 


it  is  not  that  their  work  was  ephemeral; 
there  must  be  some  other  reason  for  the  hush 
that  has  fallen  upon  them.  Our  elders, 
Whitman,  Emerson,  Tennyson,  Browning, 
Whittier,  Morris,  Longfellow,  and  the  rest, 
all  grew  old  in  the  delightful  service  of 
poetry,  courageous  and  productive  to  the 
last.  Only  one  quitted  your  service  long 
before  the  term  of  life  was  closed  for  him, 
—  one  of  the  most  lovely  and  sincere  of  mor- 
tals, one  of  the  best  of  poets.  While  still 
a  young  man,  the  inflexible  necessity  of  for- 
tune compelled  Arnold  to  abandon  his  true 
vocation,  and  devote  himself,  in  his  fine 
sedulous  way,  to  more  immediate  and  prosaic 
duties.  His  heart,  we  all  must  believe,  was 
always  yours,  but  the  unavoidable  demands 
of  the  world  permitted  him  no  respite  to  fol- 
low his  bent.  And  though  the  example  of 
his  cheerful,  courageous  life  remains  to  us, 
the  fate  which  befell  his  poetic  career  seems 
to  me  no  less  pitiful  than  the  premature 
death  of  Shelley  or  of  Keats.  Had  he  been 
209 


2C|ie  Jloetts  of  ll(fe 

permitted  to  give  his  whole  life  to  poetry, 
who  can  say  what  beautiful  masterpieces 
might  not  have  been  added  to  the  English 
tongue? 

And  in  our  own  day  I  suspect  that  the 
exigent  call  of  the  world  is  growing  more 
and  more  imperative;  its  conditions  more 
and  more  rigorous;  and  that  it  is  becoming 
yearly  more  difficult  for  the  artist  in  ideals 
to  maintain  his  independence,  —  to  fight  for 
standing-room  and  breathing-space,  —  while 
he  pursues  his  exacting  craft.  I  suspect  that 
if  a  number  of  living  poets  could  be  ques- 
tioned, it  would  be  found  that  they  have 
allowed  their  voices  to  become  silent,  not 
from  any  failure  of  loyalty  toward  yourself, 
but  simply  from  the  increasing  difficulty,  not 
to  say  indifference,  of  the  times.  What  we 
all  recognize  as  the  prevalent  complexity 
and  turmoil  and  distraction  of  life  to-day, 
with  its  multitudinous  exactions,  puts  an 
overwhelming  burden  upon  every  citizen, 
and   permits   of   almost  no   devotion   to   lei- 

2IO 


surely  intellectual  occupations.  The  sky  of 
being  is  no  longer  radiant,  but  overcast  as 
with  a  cloud  of  discouragement  and  depres- 
sion, and  we  are  surrounded  with  an  atmos- 
phere in  which  joyous  creative  spontaneity 
is  all  but  impossible.  The  bounding  vigour 
of  youth  may  support  it  for  a  time,  but  the 
grim  passage  of  leaden  days  will  wear  out 
the  strongest  heart  at  last,  and  leave  the 
spirit  no  more  elasticity  for  lofty  enter- 
prise. 

Say  what  we  will  in  defence  of  the  times, 
there  is  no  denying  their  vigour,  their  practi- 
cality, their  insensitiveness  to  beauty,  and 
the  sad  contempt  of  most  people  for  all 
that  poetry  means.  In  a  recent  discussion 
of  this  subject,  a  sturdy  follower  of  yours 
has  said  the  final  word,  *'  A  scarecrow  adver- 
tisement on  our  crowded  streets  is  rated  of 
more  worth  than  a  copy  of  the  Winged 
Victory.  Otherwise,  the  victory  would  be 
there." 

There    is    no    answer    to    that    argument. 

211 


Again,  I  read  only  last  evening  this  aston- 
ishing sentence  at  the  opening  of  an  article 
by  a  Japanese  nobleman  on  "  The  Heart  of 
the  Mikado,"  "  Fortunately  for  his  people, 
the  emperor  is  a  poet."  Fancy  any  one  in 
this  country  saying  in  a  serious  essay,  "  For- 
tunately for  the  United  States,  Mr.  John 
Hay  was  a  poet."  It  was  something  in  him 
the  public  wished  to  forget  or  condone,  noth- 
ing to  be  proud  of. 

In  all  this,  dear,  happy  Muse,  am  I  quite 
mistaken?  Is  it  because  we  are  weaklings 
that  we  can  find  no  longer  the  opportunity 
for  song,  and  your  altar  is  neglected?  I 
write  to  you  with  tumultuous  feelings  of 
regret,  not  to  excuse  my  growing  negligence 
of  you,  but  to  explain  it.  However  sad  you 
may  feel  at  our  parting,  my  own  sorrow  is 
still  greater.  To  you  it  may  seem  only  the 
breaking  of  one  more  fair  promise,  but  to  me 
it  is  the  frustration  of  kingly  hopes. 

Stripped  of  prevarication,  it  comes  to 
this;    I   am  in  debt  to  the  world.     During 

212 


the  years  spent  in  your  service,  I  have  had 
the  workman's  three  meals  a  day;  if  I  have 
not  been  elegantly  dressed,  I  have  certainly 
been  decently  clothed  most  of  the  time ;  and 
if  I  have  had  neither  horse  nor  house  to  call 
my  own,  I  have  at  least  not  slept  in  squalor. 
If  such  modest  equipment  as  I  have  enjoyed 
could  still  be  honestly  maintained,  all  would 
be  very  well  indeed.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  my  actual  and  unavoidable  account  with 
society  shows  a  considerable  balance  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  book,  with  a  tendency  to 
increase  rather  than  to  diminish  with  the 
passing  years.  This,  of  course,  we  can 
neither  of  us  afford  to  tolerate.  We  who 
profess  to  set  so  much  store  by  the  finer 
ideals,  can  hardly  shirk  the  most  ordinary 
demands  of  fair  play  in  the  daily  conduct 
of  affairs. 

When  I  tell  you,  therefore,  that  I  must 
leave  you,  and  turn  my  attention  to  the 
practical  business  of  discharging  my  debts, 
I  feel  sure  you  will  approve  my  cause,  even 

213 


2rj|e  lloetts  of  atte 

though  it  should  seem  to  be  a  slight  to  your- 
self in  the  eyes  of  outsiders.  People  have 
been  lenient  with  me  long  enough ;  no  doubt 
on  your  account.  But  there  is  a  limit  to 
human  patience,  and  a  point  beyond  which 
good  nature  ought  not  to  be  strained.  I 
must  not  bring  you  into  discredit,  while 
professedly  attempting  to  forward  your 
cause.  You  have  had  many  followers,  whose 
lives  were  sadly  at  variance  with  those  ideals 
of  lovely  and  happy  existence  of  which 
you  perpetually  dream.  Even  if  I  could 
rival  such  predecessors  in  achievement,  the 
undertaking  would  still  be  questionable  at 
such  a  cost.  And  I  have  no  right  to  count 
on  any  such  success.  Your  worship  must  be 
kept  free  from  disrepute  and  your  name 
from  disrespect,  at  all  hazards. 

You  see,  then,  the  drift  of  my  apology, 
the  very  good  reason  for  my  apparent  aban- 
donment of  your  favour  and  your  cause. 
And  I  trust  to  your  large  wisdom  for  ample 
forgiveness,  if  for  the  future  I  transfer  much 

214 


of  my  labour  and  my  allegiance  to  your  less 
distinguished  but  more  opulent  sister,  the 
muse  of  prose. 

Still  I  linger  over  the  page.  I  cannot 
bear  to  bid  you  farewell.  Like  a  lover 
parting  from  the  woman  he  loves,  my  heart 
is  torn  by  regrets,  and  my  mind  at  moments 
almost  wrecked  by  despair.  Just  as  I  have 
begun  to  master  the  difficult  technique  of 
your  art,  just  as  you  have  begun  to  im- 
part to  me  the  most  important  revelations, 
I  must  resign  the  absorbing  and  delightful 
task  of  being  your  amanuensis,  and  leave 
you,  perhaps  never  to  return.  As  a  novice 
I  came  to  you  in  joyousness  of  enthusiasm, 
and  now  I  can  imagine  no  happier  for- 
tune than  to  be  allowed  to  continue  in 
the  enjoyment  of  your  teaching,  whose  rea- 
son and  beauty  I  was  just  beginning  to 
comprehend.  I  abandon  your  way  with 
grief,  but  there  is  no  alternative. 

Good-bye  once  more,  dear  soul  of  perfect 
utterance,   whom   I   have   loved   so  well,  — 

215 


spirit  of  imperishable  beauty!  I  turn  from 
the  hearth  where  we  have  been  happy  to- 
gether, where  you  have  often  conversed  with 
such  gaiety  and  wisdom.  Henceforth  the 
long  hours  must  be  given  to  the  piety  of 
profitable  toil.  For  your  sake,  and  to  pro- 
tect our  threshold  from  profanation,  I  must 
be  prepared  to  answer  the  dreaded  knock  at 
the  door,  which  I  have  come  to  recognize 
as  the  inescapable  summons  or  the  peremp- 
tory dun. 

Do  you  think  I  would  be  pitied?  Not  I, 
dear  heart.  I  speak  of  trivial  annoyances, 
the  mere  outward  daily  fret  of  life  which 
may  conquer  human  strength,  but  cannot 
subdue  the  soul.  I  refer  to  the  rewards  of 
poetry,  not  the  compensation  of  the  poet. 
Not  all  the  rewards  of  Philistia  are  equal 
to  his  true  and  immaterial  recompense. 
There  is  no  arithmetic  to  tell,  no  symbol 
to  express,  the  happiness  you  have  given  me, 
the  serenity  of  spirit  you  have  taught  me  to 
prize,  and  which  no  adversity  can  take  away. 

216 


CJjeerful  ©eesimism 


A  FRIEND  of  mine,  with  a  ready  and  plenti- 
ful wit,  discriminated  between  two  persons 
of  his  acquaintance  by  saying  that  one  was  a 
cheerful  pessimist  and  the  other  a  tearful 
optimist.  The  distinction  is  as  suggestive 
as  it  is  delightful,  and  comes  near  to  divid- 
ing the  world  in  two.  The  incongruous 
blending  of  sad  and  gay  in  both  classes  lends 
the  universal  application  to  the  saying  — 
makes  it  human  and  genuine.  "  Thank  God, 
the  worst  has  happened,"  says  a  Chinese 
proverb,  pessimistic,  but  game  to  the  last. 
"  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
him,"  says  the  tearful  optimist.  Job.  Here 
I  am  believing  everything  is  just  as  bad  as 
it  can  be,  and  yet  with  a  fine  indestructible 

217 


core  of  valour  still  rerrraining;  and  there  you 
are,  convinced  of  the  excellence  of  the  earth, 
protesting  the  unalterable  prevalence  of  law 
and  order,  yet  touched  with  the  mouldy 
blight  of  melancholy. 

After  all,  it  is  only  a  difference  in  the 
angle  of  vision.  From  your  side  of  the  fence 
it  is  a  green  world  touched  with  blue;  from 
my  side  it  is  a  blue  world  shading  into 
green.  And  all  on  account  of  an  hour's 
difference  in  our  birth.  For  you  the  stars 
stood  in  one  position  at  the  time  of  your 
terrestrial  advent;  for  me  they  had  ranged 
themselves  in  a  new  order.  But  for  both  of 
us  the  same  omnipotent  influences  of  the 
planets  and  the  suns,  the  same  fortune  to 
inherit  from,  though  you  have  your  portion 
and  I  have  mine.  We  float  together  in  a 
tide  of  being  in  the  grasp  of  the  same  great 
wind,  in  the  pull  of  the  same  great  moon. 
On  the  perilous,  breathless  crest  of  a  wave 
you  call  yourself  an  optimist  —  with  your 
heart  in  your  mouth;    I  call  myself  a  pessi- 

218 


mist,  seeing  nothing  but  a  wall  of  water 
towering  overhead  as  I  gasp  in  the  trough 
of  a  sea.  In  a  moment  we  change  places. 
But  I  have  the  advantage  of  you  in  this,  that 
I  can  dive  from  trough  to  trough,  while  you 
cannot  skip  from  crest  to  crest.  You  must 
wallow  down  the  sliding  declivity  of  your 
unstable  mountain  of  vision,  to  be  cast  up 
again  for  another  momentary  prospect  Very 
well,  I  take  your  word  for  the  glorious  sea 
view;  meanwhile  I  prefer  the  equable  tenor 
of  my  mid-sea  way,  engulfed  at  times,  but 
avoiding  your  sickening  undulations  —  a 
Titanic  dawdling  for  which  I  have  no 
stomach. 

Cheerful  pessimism  is  the  creed  of  com- 
edy. By  comedy  one  does  not  mean,  of 
course,  the  cheap  buffoonery  which  parades 
before  us  falsely  in  the  name  of  the  kindly 
muse.  For  Comedy  is  the  wisest  of  all  the 
divine  sisters,  and,  while  she  enjoys  the 
folly  of  others,  she  is  herself  sane  and  free. 
It  is  she  who  saves  us  from  our  own  fatuity,  \ 

219 


JKHe  Jt^ottts  of  atfe 

mistress  of  so  many  great  joy-givers,  from 
Chaucer  and  Shakespeare  to  Browning  and 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  Not  only  is  so 
much  great  poetry  under  her  care,  but  all 
the  entertaining  stories  and  pictures  of  social 
humanity,  from  Fielding  and  Hogarth  to 
Du  Maurier  and  Mr.  Meredith. 

Comedy  not  only  makes  us  laugh,  sh( 
makes  us  see;  ^  while  her  solemn  sistei 
Tragedy  has  a  way  of  blinding  the  sight! 
and  distorting  our  vision  with  fear.  Tragedy 
makes  us  start  with  terror,  while  Comedy 
only  wrinkles  the  corners  of  the  eyes.  Trag- 
edy makes  us  lean  and  spectacular  and  un- 
companionable, while  Comedy  makes  us  good 
comrades,  passes  the  longest  day  with  pleas- 
antry, and  puts  us  to  bed  without  a  regret. 
Nay,  nay.  Tragedy,  thou  tearful  optimist,  I 
will  none  of  thy  lofty  icebergian  platitudes 
and  sententious  aspirations.  But  I  will  fol- 
low our  beloved  Comedy,  cheery,  ironical, 
pessimistic,  to  the  turning  of  the  street.  I 
had  almost  said  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  but 

220 


that  would  be  to  lapse  into  the  tragic  phrase  I 
Even  In  Comedy's  back  there  is  something 
irresistibly  alluring,  and  to  meet  her  once 
face  to  face  is  to  be  her  adoring  slave  for 
life.  But  imperial  Tragedy,  let  who  will 
gaze  upon  that  awful  mien,  or  follow  that 
ceremonious  tread!  Here,  at  least,  is  one 
poor  child  of  earth  who  pulls  down  his 
window-shade  as  he  sees  her  approaching. 
Knock  at  some  less  lowly  door,  I  pray,  O 
queen;  for  to  thy  fearsome  summons  I  am 
not  at  home.  But  comely  Comedy  may  enter 
when  she  will,  and  stay  as  long  as  the  law 
allows.    To  her  I  say: 

**  There  is  no  lock  for  thee. 
Each  door  awaits  thy  hand )  " 

As   Mr.   Aldrich   has   said  with   his   fine 
grace,  — 

"  Some  Melpomene  woo, 

Some  hold  Clio  the  nearest  ; 
You,  sweet  Comedy  —  you 

Were  ever  sweetest  and  dearest  !  " 

And  for  the  pursuit  of  the  ideal,  the  crea- 
tive instinct,  the  happy  moment  of  inspira- 

221 


tion,  I  am  not  persuaded  that  any  better 
mood  than  that  of  cheerful  pessimism  has 
been  found.  Certainly  if  we  are  to  be 
touched  by  the  things  of  art,  if  our  minds 
are  to  be  convinced  and  our  emotions  en- 
listed, it  must  be  —  it  can  only  be  —  by  one 
who  has  plumbed  the  deepest  abyss.  And 
yet,  just  as  certainly,  will  he  fail  to  hold  us, 
if  he  has  not  brought  to  light,  like  a  diver 
from  the  sea,  some  pearl  of  great  price,  some 
talisman  of  joy.  Your  optimism  is  too  apt 
to  have  a  tearful  tinge.  Let  me  be  never  so 
stoutly  settled  in  the  optimistic  faith,  there 
still  survives  and  recurs  at  times  the  ines- 
capable sorrow  of  the  world.  And  then,  of 
course,  disappointment  comes  to  add  its 
drop  of  bitterness.  Whereas  our  brothers 
who  hoped  for  nothing,  had  the  glad  sur- 
prise of  discovering  shreds  of  happiness  and 
vestiges  of  good  at  every  turn. 

Taken  all  in  all,  you  would  have  a  long 
argument  in  proving  to  me  the  creed  of  the 


22^ 


cheerful  pessimist  is  the  worst  in  the  world. 
And  though  she  deny  me  with  every  breath, 
I  shall  still  cleave  to  Comedy,  mistress  of  the 
heart  ot  man. 


223 


Ma^ttt^  of  tije  ^oritr 


You  may  say  of  conduct,  it  is  never  purely 
ethical,  but  has  always  elements  of  the 
aesthetic  as  well.  What  we  do  is  of  great 
importance  in  this  difficult  world;  but  how 
we  do  it  is  of  quite  as  much  importance. 
It  is  not  enough  to  do  good;  we  must  do 
good  gracefully,  so  that  while  righteousness 
is  served,  beauty  may  be  served  also.  For 
the  end  of  each  is  perfection,  and  total  per- 
fection must  include  what  is  fair  as  well 
as  what  is  noble.  The  appearance  of  the 
act,  as  well  as  the  gist  of  the  action,  is  always 
to  be  counted. 

More  than  that,  it  is  always  to  be  asked 
>whether  a  line  of  conduct  is  wise,  whether 

224 


it  is  in  conformity  with  the  requirements  of 
the  economy  of  the  world  and  the  conserva- 
tion of  life.  However  well  meaning,  how- 
ever graceful  we  may  be,  we  may  still  work 
havoc  rather  than  assistance  among  our  fel- 
lows, if  we  take  no  care  to  act  thoughtfully, 
wisely,  judiciously. 

So  many  lives  are  stunted  and  hampered, 
and  their  effect  almost  nullified,  for  lack  of 
consideration  in  this  regard!  How  devotedly, 
how  unreservedly,  with  what  untold  ardour 
and  self-denial,  the  saints  of  the  earth  in 
the  long  march  of  ages  have  given  them- 
selves without  stint  to  the  cause  of  good! 
Poverty,  hardship,  hunger  and  cold,  perils 
and  buffets,  insult  and  contempt  and  neglect, 
sickness  and  travel,  and  unrequited  labour,  — 
all  these  they  have  endured  with  cheerful  pa- 
tience or  rugged  fortitude,  that  the  right 
might  at  length  prevail,  and  the  consuming 
spirit  within  them  behold  the  triumph  of 
the  cause  which  enlisted  their  mighty  hearts. 
Whatever  their  creed  or  nation  or  sect  or 

225 


age,  they  have  been  called  by  common  con- 
sent the  sons  of  God,  and  credited  with  al- 
most more  than  human  excellence.  Builders 
of  churches,  founders  of  religions,  carrying 
some  new  tidings  of  hope  into  thronging 
cities  of  eager  men,  or  spreading  the  conso- 
lations of  their  gospel  abroad  to  the  far 
corners  of  the  earth,  they  have  earned  a 
universal  respect,  a  name  for  piety,  and 
imperishable  glory,  as  men  fancy,  in  a  king- 
dom not  of  this  world.  They  were  seekers 
of  perfection,  and  perfection  to  them  meant 
the  supreme  dominance  of  goodness,  the 
victory  of  righteousness  over  evil. 

Yet  they  were  not  alone.  Others,  too, 
have  dreamed  of  perfection,  —  the  dreamers 
who  beheld  far  off  the  ideal  of  universal 
culture,  and  the  dreamers  who  brooded  on 
the  creation  of  flawless  beauty,  —  the  dream- 
ers who  longed  to  make  life  intelligible,  and 
the  dreamers  who  longed  to  make  it  lovely, 
—  the  scholars  and  the  artists.  The  saint, 
the    scholar,    the    artist,  —  these    three    be- 

226 


M^^ttvn  of  ti^e  2S!Sotl9 

tween  them  divide  the  dominion  of  the 
world.  The  ambition  of  the  artist,  like  that 
of  his  brother  the  saint,  has  been  prosecuted 
with  zeal  and  courage  and  much  enduring 
toil.  Yet  his  aim  is  somewhat  different.  To 
the  one  life  is  an  opportunity  for  action,  for 
influencing  the  course  of  events,  and  for 
ameliorating  the  condition  of  temporal  and 
eternal  affairs;  to  the  other  it  offers  the 
plastic  media  of  a  radiant  fleeting  universe, 
to  be  moulded  and  repatterned  after  his 
own  will  into  shapes  more  beautiful  than 
the  eye  has  yet  beheld.  To  the  one  the  out- 
ward world,  with  all  its  entrancing  variety 
and  loveliness,  appeals  with  a  delirious  en- 
thralment;  to  the  other  the  inward  universe 
is  made  clear  in  ordered  excellence  and 
majesty.  The  one  capital  mistake  of  either 
saint  or  scholar  or  artist  lies  solely  in  this, 
that  he  fails  to  remember  the  importance  of 
the  others;  yet  the  three  are  equal,  and  the 
work  of  each  is  of  equal  use  to  the  world,  — 
more  than  that,  it  is  of  equal  dignity  and 

227 


^f^t  ^otivp  of  ILiU 

equally  essential   to   the   furtherance   of   the 
cause  of  man's  perfection. 

In  that  long  future  to  which  the  soul  looks 
forward,  the  day  will  come  when  we  shall 
awake  as  from  a  restless  dream,  and  perceive 
the  mistake  of  our  distracted  endeavour. 
We  shall  see  clearly  that  not  in  the  pre- 
dominance of  rarefied  spirituality,  nor  in  the 
supremacy  of  inflexible  reason,  does  man's 
normal  perfection  reside,  any  more  than 
in  the  vexatious  tyranny  of  the  flesh.  It 
will  be  borne  in  upon  us  that  an  equal  bal- 
ance of  these  contending  forces,  brought  to 
fine  poise  in  each  personality,  is  the  only  true 
type  of  character  after  which  we  should 
strive.  The  terrible  waste  of  energy  we  now 
suffer  in  the  suicidal  friction  of  varying 
ideals,  will  be  apparent;  and  we  shall  say 
to  ourselves,  "  What  folly  has  been  ours,  to 
be  thus  constantly  at  strife!  How  foolish 
to  have  striven  to  overcome  the  flesh,  to 
mortify  our  goodly  beauty  and  our  strength! 


228 


M^^ttv^  of  tl^e  WLoxVtf 

How  absurd  to  suppose  we  could  ever  di- 
vorce ourselves  from  ourselves!" 

For  in  truth  our  differing  natures  are  but 
different  phases  of  one  indivisible  nature. 
If  man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone,  neither 
can  he  live  by  prayer  alone,  nor  by  taking 
thought  alone.  It  was  natural  that  in  the 
beginnings  of  self-consciousness,  sustenance 
and  the  satisfying  of  bodily  needs  should 
seem  the  only  necessity.  It  was  natural, 
too,  that  as  man  became  aware  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  the  mind,  other  needs  should  seem 
to  him  more  worthy  than  those  of  the  body. 
Just  as  naturally  will  spread  the  glad  real- 
ization of  the  newer,  larger  ideal  of  perfect 
manhood,  which  gives  free  play  to  each 
normal  instinct,  and  allows  an  equal  culture 
for  the  three  natures  so  strangely  brought 
to  focus  in  the  clay-built  structure  we  in- 
habit. 

Nay,  more  than  that,  it  will  be  revealed 
to  us,  gradually  and  like  a  joyous  gospel, 
that  in  following  this  new  standard  of  normal 

229 


SCJje  Poettfi  of  aife 

culture,  we  are  not  only  giving  vent  to  the 
varying  and  seemingly  opposed  powers  we 
possess,  but  that  the  cultivating  of  one  im- 
plies the  growth  of  all.  We  shall  see  how 
essential  health  is,  not  only  to  happiness,  but 
to  righteousness  and  clear  thinking  also,  — 
how  every  service  rendered  this  perishable 
tenement  makes  for  clarity  of  mind  and 
sweetness  of  temper,  —  and  how  we  can 
never  foster  one  faculty  without  bettering 
our  whole  being,  nor  ever  approach  entire 
excellence  while  any  need,  whether  of  mind 
or  body  or  spirit,  remains  ruthlessly  neg- 
lected. 

To  such  a  code  the  intellectual  life  alone 
can  never  seem  of  paramount  importance; 
but  the  discovery  of  truth  must  be  followed 
by  actual  accomplishment.  Nor  will  accom- 
plishment suffice  without  grace.  To  con- 
sider wisely  is  of  the  first  importance;  nor 
is  it  less  important  to  deal  justly  and  honestly 
with  our  fellows.  The  imperative  necessity 
for  making  life  comely  and  attractive,  how- 

230 


ever,  i§  hardly  recognized  as  of  equal  merit. 
Yet  beauty  in  itself  is  only  another  kind  of 
virtue,  and  one  test  of  noble  conduct  is  fair 
seeming.  It  is,  indeed,  possible  to  be  good, 
to  be  scrupulous,  to  be  humane,  to  be  kindly, 
while  giving  scant  attention  to  the  figure  we 
cut  in  the  world.  This  is  a  common  ideal; 
we  all  know  people  of  careless,  unlovely 
habits,  whom  we  still  declare  to  be  the  salt  of 
the  earth.  But  why  should  our  tone  be 
apologetic?  Why  should  they  content  them- 
selves with  their  native  goodness,  and  make 
no  effort  to  be  pleasing  as  well?  It  is  surely 
only  a  warped  and  stunted  virtue  which 
resides  in  frowsy  asceticism;  just  as  all 
beauty  must  be  perishable  and  touched  with 
blight,  which  does  not  embody  a  generous 
moral  essence.  To  give  one's  self  to  good 
deeds,  and  still  care  nothing  for  the  graces 
of  living,  is  to  rob  those  very  deeds  of  half 
their  power;  while  to  attempt  to  cultivate 
grace,  without  sincerity  and  meaning  and 
impulse,  is  equally  futile.     The  world  will 

231 


©tie  mttvs  of  mft 

not  long  be  deceived  by  either  faulty  con- 
ception of  the  whole  duty  of  man.  For  we 
must  remember  that  the  universe  is  normal, 
and  proceeds  on  normal  laws.  It  is  only  our 
fragmentary  ideas  that  are  at  fault,  and  all 
our  unhappiness  comes  from  attempting  to 
live  according  to  wrong  notions.  In  the  end, 
in  the  long  run,  however,  life  must  be  made 
square  with  ideals,  and  the  false  and  unlovely 
be  pared  away. 

To  govern  our  daily  life  according  to  right 
principles,  then,  is  our  chief  concern,  if  you 
will;  but  to  govern  it  according  to  the  pref- 
erences of  taste,  concerns  us  also.  We  are  to 
make  our  conduct  not  only  exemplary,  but 
fair  and  pleasing,  so  that  our  friends  may 
think  us  charming  as  well  as  scrupulous. 
These  passing  days  are  a  tissue  of  appear- 
ances to  be  woven  into  patterns  of  ugliness 
or  beauty  beneath  our  hands.  No  time  is 
too  precious  to  spend,  no  detail  too  small  to 
be  considered,  in  bringing  the  fabric  of  life, 
as  it  passes  through  our  fingers,  ever  nearer 

232 


and  nearer  to  some  preconceived  image  of 
beauty.  The  good  of  all  ages  who  have 
been  imbued  with  a  passion  for  righteous- 
ness, have  never  hesitated  to  spend  them- 
selves generously,  for  the  cause  they  loved, 
the  advancement  of  goodness;  nor  should 
those  who  care  for  what  is  beautiful  ever 
hesitate  to  give  themselves  as  liberally  to 
make  beauty  prevail  in  the  world.  They 
should  once  for  all  assure  themselves  of  the 
great  and  abiding  worthiness  of  their  cause, 
also,  knowing  it  of  equal  dignity  with  the 
cause  of  righteousness.  It  is  not  less  hon- 
ourable to  work  than  to  pray.  The  only 
dishonour  is  in  slovenliness  and  faintness 
of  heart;  for  when  we  aspire  we  must  aspire 
with  all  our  might,  and  when  we  work  we 
must  work  with  infinite  patience  and  infinite 
care,  so  that  the  greatest  wish  is  not  too 
large  for  the  fluttering  soul,  nor  the  smallest 
(detail  too  insignificant  for  attention.  There 
is  no  other  road  to  perfection. 

If  you  observe  the  masters  in  any  of  the 
233 


8Ciie  ^ottvs  of  ULiU 

arts,  or  in  any  of  the  professions,  or  in  any 
business,  you  will  find  that  they  work  with- 
out hurry,  without  fret,  with  an  equal  regard 
for  great  things  and  small.  They  know 
proportion,  indeed,  but  they  know,  too,  how 
fine  a  balance  exists  between  success  and 
failure,  and  how  small  a  trifle  may  mar  the 
issue  of  an  undertaking. 

I  often  used  to  marvel  at  the  endless  pains 
some  people  would  take  over  the  small 
concerns  of  life,  the  hanging  of  a  picture, 
the  trimming  of  a  bonnet,  or  the  number  of 
buttons  on  a  coat;  but  I  have  come  to  see 
that  success  depends  on  trifles,  and  that 
the  right  adjustment  of  the  smallest  detail 
of  living  is  quite  as  important  as  the  sequence 
of  syllables  in  a  memorable  lyric  or  the 
proximity  of  colours  in  some  splendid  paint- 
ing. Moreover,  the  pleasure  of  the  average 
man  in  all  he  does  may  be  just  as  keen  as 
the  artist's  delight  in  his  work.  Every  one 
of  us  may  become  an  artist  in  the  conduct 
of  life,  if  he  will  turn  his  mind  to  it,  culti- 

234 


M^^itvu  of  tf^t  Wiovltf 

vating  -his  taste,  and,  above  all,  using  patient 
care.  And  we  shall  come  to  know  a  satis- 
faction in  so  doing;  for  all  things  done  well 
have  this  great  recompense,  whatever  they 
cost  in  time  and  labour,  —  they  give  us  an 
imperishable  delight  which  can  never  spring 
from  hurried  or  slighted  tasks. 

Notice  the  difference  between  men  in  this 
matter,  how  easily  some  seem  to  live,  and 
with  how  much  difficulty  others  go  about 
their  business.  Here  is  one  who  is  never 
hurried,  never  ill-natured,  never  anxious, 
accomplishing  much;  while  there  is  an- 
other who  frets  and  toils  and  complains  and 
never  has  a  moment's  leisure,  yet  accom- 
plishes nothing.  It  is  largely  a  matter  of 
art,  the  art  of  living.  The  first  has  poise, 
the  second  has  not.  The  first  has  the  serene 
temperament  and  happy  spirit  of  an  artist, 
while  his  fellow  has  only  the  fussy  nervous- 
ness of  a  dabster.  The  first  would  undertake 
vast   affairs  with   a   light  heart,   and   carry 


235 


them  through  without  friction;  the  second 
would  worry  over  the  merest  trifle,  and  spend 
all  his  energy  in  hesitation,  timidity,  and 
indecision. 


236 


Eije  iioetrg  t^f  So- 


monoti? 


Have  we  not  reason  enough  to  believe  that 
the  poetry  of  to-morrow  will  be  greater  than 
the  poetry  of  to-day,  simply  because  we  be- 
lieve that  to-day  is  greater  than  yesterday? 

In  the  elder  days  the  house  of  knowledge 
was  narrow  and  low;  and  art  was  no  more 
than  the  telling  of  a  tale  whose  beginning 
was  "  Once  upon  a  time,"  and  its  ending, 
"  lived  happy  ever  after."  And  the  religion 
of  that  house  was  mixed  with  terror.  But 
there  came  a  change.  The  restless  children 
of  that  house,  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  divine 
discontent,  must  lift  the  roof  and  push  out 
the  walls.  Master  Newton,  Master  Colum- 
bus,  Master   Galileo,    Master   Darwin,    and 

237 


scores  of  others,  refused  to  live  in  the  old 
shack  where  they  had  been  born.  It  was 
good  enough  for  their  fathers,  but  by  no 
means  good  enough  for  them.  They  in- 
tended to  have  a  roomier  habitation,  cleaner, 
airier,  and  more  modern.  They  gave  us  the 
spacious  intellectual  mansion  we  occupy  to- 
day, and  of  which  we  boast.  But  who  knows 
how  long  it  will  serve  the  needs  of  our 
growing  human  family?  Some  day  a  lad  will 
be  born  who  will  kick  a  hole  through  the 
wall  for  another  window  here,  tear  out  a 
place  for  a  doorway  there,  and  push  away 
a  corner  for  a  new  wing  in  another  place. 
If  there  is  no  limit  to  knowledge,  there 
can  be  no  limit  to  art,  either,  since  art  con- 
tains our  comment  on  science,  and  reflects  the 
growth  of  our  minds.  But  this  progress,  as 
we  call  it,  this  expansion,  is  not  even  and  uni- 
form. It  is  rather  spasmodic  and  inter- 
mittent. If  there  have  been  times  when  the 
house  of  knowledge  underwent  alterations, 
repairs,    and    extensions,    there    have    been 

238 


JTifte  ^ottvs  of  Eo-motvo\n 

other  times  when  its  tenants  were  content  to 
occupy  it  in  squalor  and  unillumined 
lethargy,  receiving  it  from  their  sires  and 
handing  it  on  to  their  sons,  deteriorated  and 
outworn. 

Yet  the  ages  of  depression,  of  faint-heart- 
edness,  of  despair,  are  only  momentary  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  They  are  the  unfit 
product  of  time,  and  in  the  natural  selection 
of  eternity  they  will  not  survive.  We  are 
here  in  spite  of  sorrow,  because  there  is  a 
joy  in  living  common  to  the  oyster  and  the 
octogenarian,  the  elephant  and  the  epicure. 
And  in  our  art  the  joyousness  must  outweigh 
the  sadness. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  greatest 
poet  is  he  who  most  perfectly  voices  the 
trend  of  emotion  of  his  time.  It  is  claimed 
that  the  greatness  of  Arnold,  for  example, 
is  attested  most  clearly  in  such  poems  as 
"A  Summer  Night,"  "Dover  Beach," 
"The  Youth  of  Man,"  and  other  beautiful 
meditations  which   are   full  of  the  grievous 

239 


sadness  of  his  age  and  its  moral  incertitude. 
It  is  said  that  his  claim  upon  the  future  for 
remembrance  will  lie  in  his  mournful  note, 
because  a  moral  sadness  was  most  distinct- 
ive of  his  own  time. 

This  is  only  partly  true,  however.  What 
^  will  the  future  care  for  our  sentimental 
gloom,  our  moral  doubts,  our  sad  searchings 
of  the  spirit?  It  will  only  care  to  remember 
in  us  those  traits  and  traditions  that  may 
help  it  to  live.  Even  in  the  day  of  doubt, 
the  dolorous  singer  will  not  be  listened  to 
by  all  his  contemporaries  as  gladly  as  will 
the  sturdier  minstrel  who  sets  his  face  against 
the  desperate  dolefulness  about  him.  Arnold, 
the  gracious  and  wistful  abjurer  of  strife, 
has  his  place  among  the  great  English  poets, 
first  of  all  by  reason  of  such  faultless  crea- 
tions of  beauty  as  "  Sohrab  and  Rustum," 
"  Tristram  and  Iseult,"  "  The  Neckan,"  and 
"  The  Forsaken  Merman, '^  and  only  second- 
arily because  of  his  meditative  works.  If 
our    descendants    turn    to    him    hereafter    as 

240 


one  of  4he  eminent  poets  of  the  Victorian 
age,  and  take  delight  in  his  poems,  they  will 
judge  him  by  their  own  standards;  and 
whatever  these  standards  may  be,  let  us 
assure  ourselves  they  will  not  value  the 
utterances  of  doubt  more  highly  than  those 
of  joy. 

In  front  of  Chaucer's  tomb  lie  the  two 
Sons  of  Thunder  of  the  Victorian  age. 
Browning  and  Tennyson.  We  have  hon- 
oured Tennyson  the  more  of  the  two,  be- 
cause his  speech  was  easier  to  comprehend. 
Men  hereafter,  I  am  sure,  will  not  honour 
Browning  the  less,  for  in  time  it  will  seem 
puerile  that  we  could  have  thought  him 
obscure,  or  could  have  missed  the  forthright 
rush  and  lyric  sincerity  of  his  work.  If 
Browning  shall  be  more  esteemed  hereafter 
than  Tennyson,  one  reason  will  be  in  his 
abundant  and  unconquerable  faith.  Every 
creation  that  came  from  his  hand  taught 
self-reliance,  heroism,  joy.  The  race  of 
man,   alike  with  the  creatures  of  the  field, 

241 


persists  by  just  those  qualities.  The  great 
poet  is  he  who  fosters  such  positive  virtues 
in  the  heart. 

It  was  easy  to  be  a  poet  in  the  morning 
times  of  the  bold  Elizabeth,  for  then  hero- 
ism, joy,  and  self-reliance  were  everywhere. 
Conquest  and  expansion  were  in  the  air,  and 
triumph  and  elation  in  every  wind  that  blew. 
To-day  is  not  less  great  in  discovery,  only 
our  discoveries  are  intellectual,  and,  there- 
fore, less  obvious,  less  stimulating  to  the 
common  imagination.  The  Elizabethans 
found  new  continents,  and  brought  back 
reports  of  unimagined  dominions  oversea. 
We  have  made  far  explorations  into  the  un- 
known, and  made  faithful  reports  of  them, 
but  our  home-coming  is  attended  with  no 
floating  of  banners,  no  sound  of  drums.  It 
is  more  difficult  for  us  to  translate  our  por- 
tentous news  into  ringing  songs  than  it  was 
for  those  old  discoverers.  We  deal  in  treas- 
ures so  much  less  palpable  and  picturesque 
than  they. 

242 


ffftt  l^oettff  of  2Co=inottoUi 

But- to-morrow,  doubt  not,  the  Captain  of 
the  Ocean  Sea  will  come,  the  adjuster  and 
revealer  of  new  realms  of  poetry,  who  will 
establish  us  in  our  new-found  heritage.  We 
may  know  him  by  sight,  though  that  is 
doubtful.  We  may  honour  him  during  his 
lifetime,  though  that  is  not  likely«  His 
work  will  be  done  without  conceit,  yet  with 
disregard  of  the  blame  of  his  fellows  or  their 
approval.  In  spite  of  his  essential  sensitive- 
ness, both  adulation  and  neglect  will  leave 
him  unmoved.  Just  what  his  work  will  be, 
none  can  say,  for  he  himself,  when  he  shall 
arrive,  will  not  be  able  to  tell  the  secret  of 
his  ecstatic  vision.  The  task  which  his  fancy 
shall  so  cunningly  contrive  in  an  idle  noon, 
his  craftsmanship  may  finish  before  sunset; 
yet  it  will  give  him  no  hint  of  the  sudden 
revelation  that  may  be  awaiting  him  within 
the  doors  of  the  following  dawn. 

Nevertheless,  there  are  some  traits  of  his 
work  that  we  may  be  sure  of.  That  it  will 
be  large  and  glad  and  valiant  is  certain;   for 

243 


these  qualities  inhere  in  the  heart  of  man,  not 
to  be  thrust  out  by  the  overthrow  of  empires, 
nor  the  founding  of  republics,  nor  any  trifles 
of  history  whatsoever.  These  are  the  things 
that  help  the  race  forward;  and  anything 
that  does  not  so  help  it  will  speedily  be  for- 
gotten as  a  surmounted  hindrance.  But  one 
thing  is  also  certain,  the  poetry  of  to-morrow 
will  not  be  commonly  understood;  it  will 
appeal  only  to  the  children  of  its  own  to- 
morrow. And  this,  not  because  it  will  be 
incoherent,  but  because  the  true  artist  speaks 
from  within,  by  an  authority  which  he  him- 
self does  not  always  understand;  and  his  new 
word,  so  potent  to  himself,  is  a  sealed  book 
to  most  of  his  troubled  fellows.  He  will 
be  gently  obstinate  about  his  work,  yet  none 
will  be  a  more  willing  learner  than  he, 
gladly  considering  even  the  most  casual 
criticism. 

Nature,  the  beautiful  outer  world,  is  all 
that  the  Invisible  found  to  say  before  the 
appearance    of    man.      Art    is    the    constant 

244 


©tie  ^ottvs  of  Eo-movvoix^ 

slow  insistent  endeavour  of  the  same  power 
to  utter  itself  still  more  coherently,  still 
more  intelligently  and  finally  through  the 
speech  of  man.  If  the  only  end  of  art  were 
to  please  and  entertain,  the  critic's  task  were 
an  easy  one.  But  art  has  always  had  some- 
thing else  to  do  as  well.  It  must  please  in 
order  to  influence,  but  it  has  always  been 
infused  with  the  desire  to  influence  and  con- 
trol. It  does  not  specifically  wish  to  be 
didactic,  but  it  always  has  at  least  a  covert 
aim,  a  wish  to  impose  a  dominant  standard 
of  beauty  upon  life.  It  will  lead  and  stimu- 
late and  suggest.  It  will  content  itself  with 
the  creation  of  the  beautiful,  knowing  that 
therein  lies  its  best  and  most  effective  means 
of  aiding  the  cause  of  nobility  and  truth. 
Its  influence  will  be  as  generous  as  the  sun 
and  as  impassive  as  the  dew,  as  abundant  as 
the  wind,  as  resistless  as  the  sea,  and  as  subtle 
and  sure  as  the  impress  of  environment  upon 
the  unborn  child.  Poetry  is  a  criticism  of 
life,  indeed,  but  it  is  also  much  more  than 

245 


that.  It  is  an  aspiration  toward  a  new  life, 
the  persistent  and  prescient  cry  of  the  soul. 
The  poetry  of  to-morrow  will  not  neces- 
sarily be  so  unlike  the  poetry  of  to-day. 
Perhaps  only  the  knowing  will  be  able  to 
recognize  it  at  once.  There  is  no  need  to 
trouble  ourselves  about  it.  The  ages  are  not 
in  a  hurry.  It  is  only  London  and  New 
York  that  are  in  a  hurry.  In  due  time  a 
greater  than  Shakespeare  will  arrive.  It  is 
foolish  to  suppose  that  the  Word  which  was 
in  the  beginning,  and  which  has  spoken 
through  lips  to  men  so  often  in  these  many 
centuries,  will  leave  us  without  any  testament 
at  last. 


246 


^\^t  ^ttmamntt  of 


It  is  often  claimed  that  the  day  for  poetry 
is  past,  that  we  live  in  an  age  of  prose,  and 
for  the  future  shall  get  along  very  well  with- 
out the  solace  which  poetry  was  wont  to 
supply.  It  is  a  question,  however,  whether 
those  who  make  this  claim  have  not  con- 
ceived far  too  narrow  a  scope  for  poetry, 
and  been  heedless  in  thinking  what  poetry 
really  is.  They  have,  one  must  believe,  al- 
lowed themselves  to  take  a  very  superficial 
and  hurried  view  of  human  history,  and  been 
content  to  accept  the  current  notion  of  the 
fine  arts  and  their  place  in  our  social  order. 

What  is  that  notion?  How  do  we  at  the 
present  day  think  of  the  fine   arts,   and  of 

247 


SUt  ^ottvp  of  affe 

poetry  in  particular?  And  what  place  do 
we  commonly  assign  them  in  our  scheme  of 
life?  Is  it  not  true  that  we  nearly  always 
think  of  them  as  luxurious  occupations, 
forms  of  harmless  amusement  or  innocuous 
pastimes,  to  be  tolerated  perhaps,  but  yet 
without  any  real  hold  on  people,  and  without 
any  spontaneous  life  in  public  sentiment? 
By  the  fine  arts  most  of  us  understand  those 
eccentric,  if  not  questionable,  pursuits  which 
fill  our  rich  houses  with  pictures  and  statues, 
and  our  opera-houses  with  extravagant  music. 
We  have  come  to  think  of  the  fine  arts  as 
foreign  to  our  real  life,  as  esoteric,  expen- 
sive, precious,  unnecessary,  and,  therefore, 
to  the  ordinary  mind,  just  a  trifle  ridiculous. 
This  is  not  an  unjust  view  of  the  fine 
arts  as  they  exist  among  us  to-day.  They 
live  by  sufferance,  not  by  right.  We  do  not 
acknowledge  their  title  to  a  place  in  modern 
civilization;  we  accept  them  as  the  more 
or  less  foolish  accompaniments  of  wealth. 
They   have   no   source   in    popular   feeling; 

248 


they  do  not  spring  up  irresistibly  from  our 
social  conditions;  they  command  no  respect 
save  among  a  small  highly  educated  class. 
Our  people  at  large  have  no  such  sense  of 
beauty,  no  such  native  good  taste,  as  the 
common  people  of  France,  for  instance,  or 
of  Japan. 

Yet  for  all  that,  admitting  the  wholly 
anomalous  and  artificial  character  of  all  the 
ancient  arts  as  they  survive  among  us  to-day, 
does  it  follow  that  they  will  always  be  so 
entirely  divorced  from  our  social  and  na- 
tional Hie?  May  there  not  come  a  time 
when  our  debased  political  institutions  will 
be  purified,  when  our  public  morals  will  be 
elevated,  when  our  industrial  and  commer- 
cial ethics  will  come  to  acknowledge  more 
honourable  standards?  May  we  not  look 
forward  to  a  day  when  old-fashioned  honesty 
will  be  restored  to  the  code  of  American 
ideals?  May  we  not  hope  that  our  present 
era  of  unmitigated  commercialism,  barbarity, 
and  greed,  is  only  a  passing  phase  in  the  story 

249 


of  the  world,  and  that  time  will  renew  our 
enthusiasm  for  things  of  the  mind  and  the 
spirit?  To  see  clearly  one's  own  faults, 
or  to  mark  the  shortcomings  of  one's  own 
time,  is  not  to  be  a  pessimist.  The  pessi- 
mist is  one  who  thinks  nothing  could  be 
better.  Admirable,  therefore,  as  our  life 
may  be  to-day,  it  is  our  business  as  sane  men 
to  look  for  its  flaws  and  strive  to  mend  them. 
Perfection,  not  self-gratulation,  is  the  duty 
of  mortals. 

Granted,  then,  that  art  and  poetry  are  in  a 
sorry  plight  at  present,  shall  we  conclude 
that  their  day  is  over?  While  there  is  even 
such  art  life  as  there  is,  is  there  not  hope? 
Had  we  not  better  ask  ourselves  if  we  are 
quite  sure  what  art  is,  and  what  poetry  is,  be- 
fore we  proceed  to  set  them  lightly  aside  in 
the  storeroom  of  oblivion  with  other  dis- 
carded lumber  of  time?  Our  creeds  must 
change  as  knowledge  increases,  yet  faith 
remains  of  paramount  importance.  Our 
conception  of  the  universe  must  change  with 

250 


accession  of  science,  yet  love  of  truth  only 
becomes  more  necessary.  So,  too,  we  need 
art  in  all  the  business  of  life  more  impera- 
tively to-day  than  ever  before.  For  art  is  a 
manner  of  doing  things,  not  the  thing  that  is 
done.  Art  is  not  the  painting  itself,  but  the 
loving  fervour,  the  hard  knowledge,  the 
skilled  industry,  that  went  to  make  the  paint- 
ing. When  anything  is  ill  done,  it  reveals 
a  lack  of  art.  And  this  lack  of  art  may 
spring  from  lack  of  sincere  devotion  in  the 
artist  himself,  or  from  a  lack  of  wisdom, 
or  from  a  lack  of  skill. 

And  this  question  of  poetry?  Is  poetry 
a  task  for  children  and  idlers,  a  sort  of 
Chinese  puzzle  in  words,  something  to  di- 
vert the  mind,  an  employment  for  invalids 
and  weaklings?  I  believe  if  we  consider 
a  moment,  and  recall  the  hold  which  poetry 
has  had  on  men's  minds,  the  influence  it 
has  exerted  on  life,  we  must  conclude  it  is 
something  far  more  vital  and  forceful  than 
that.     Poetry  has  been  a  great  power  in  the 

251 


Zfft  aporttfi  of  %Ht 

world.  If  it  is  not  a  great  power  at  die 
present  time,  that  does  not  prove  that  we 
have  outgrown  it;  it  only  means  that  we 
have  forgotten  it  for  the  moment.  We  can 
no  more  outgrow  poetry  than  we  can  outgrow 
gravitation.  The  mode  of  poetry  may 
change,  as  the  customs  of  nations  change; 
we  do  not  enjoy  the  same  kind  of  poetry  that 
our  ancestors  did;  our  own  poetry  must  be 
native  to  us,  and  must  express  our  own 
thoughts  and  sentiments,  rather  than  those 
of  an  alien  clime  and  a  forgotten  age;  but 
the  natural  phenomenon  which  we  call 
poetry  will  always  be  present  in  the  world. 
Why?  Because  poetry  is  nothing  more 
than  the  form  which  human  speech  assumes 
under  the  stress  of  clear  thinking  and  lofty 
aspiration,  under  the  terms  of  beautiful 
utterance.  The  laws  of  poetry  are  not  con- 
ventional, but  natural.  The  first  poet  to 
use  any  given  form  of  verse  is  rather  a  dis- 
coverer than  an  inventor.  \  Take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  phenomenon  of  the  iambic  pen- 

252 


8CJt  J$tvm^ntntt  of  IPoetts 

tameter  line  in  English  poetry.  See  how 
universally  it  is  used  from  Chaucer  to  Ten- 
nyson; all  of  Shakespeare,  all  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama,  all  of  "  Paradise  Lost,"  all  of 
Pope  and  Dryden,  all  of  "  The  Ring  and 
the  Book,"  all  of  the  "  Idylls  of  the  King," 
indeed,  a  large  portion  of  our  poetic  litera- 
ture is  done  in  this  measure.  Now  how  shall 
we  account  for  this  phenomenon?  Shall  we 
say  that  succeeding  poets  slavishly  followed 
their  distinguished  predecessors  in  the  use 
of  the  blank  verse  line?  Did  they  have 
to  study  to  learn  the  trick?  Not  at  all.  They 
used  it  spontaneously,  naturally,  uncon- 
scicuely.  They  never  could  tell  you  why. 
And  if  a  poet  should  be  born  in  England 
to-morrow  and  reared  in  entire  ignorance  of 
English  poetry,  he  would  discover  blank 
verse  for  himself.  Its  recurrence  and  per- 
sistence in  English  mean  that  it  is  a  vital 
form  of  expression,  which  springs  inevi- 
tably into  use,  just  as   a  nod  of  the   head 


253 


is  an  instinctive  motion  of  assent,   and  not 
merely   a   conventional   gesture. 
y^  The  study  of  versification,  or  the  outward 
/  form  of  poetry,  becomes  an  empirical  science. 
j     We  simply  collate  our  facts  and  deduce  our 
I     laws;    for  the  laws  of  poetry  are  truly  laws, 
and    not    rules.      There    may    be    rules    for 
writing  sonnets,  but  there   are  no  rules  for 
writing  poetry.     The  poet  is  himself  always 
acting  under  laws  of  expression,  which  are 
far    too    complex    and    universal    for    him 
wholly  to  comprehend.     He  is  only  a  vent 
for  expression  —  a   medium   through  which 
certain    powers    find    play    in    harmonious 
accordance  with  their  natural  laws.     When 
he    permits    himself    to    rely    on    intuition, 
when   he   feels   instinctively   for   the   perfect 
phrase,  then   he  attains  something  like   per- 
fection of  utterance.     When  he  attempts  to 
interfere  with  inspiration,  and  to  write  after 
some  plan  of  his  own  devising,  then  he  fails. 
When  Wordsworth  wrote   from   instinct,    at 
the  dictate  of  his  genius,  he  was  great.  When 

254 


/ 


he  allowed  himself  to  put  in  practice  certain 
conclusions  of  his  own  as  to  how  poetry 
should  be  written,  he  became  tedious.  So, 
too,  of  Whitman;  when  he  gave  free  play 
to  his  genius,  he  spoke  with  the  tongue  of 
a  seraph;  but  when  he  attempted  to  imitate 
himself,  when  he  tried  to  put  in  practice 
certain  notions  of  his  own  as  to  what  poetry 
ought  to  be,  he  failed.  The  artist  must  be  a 
student  of  his  own  art,  it  is  true ;  but  he  must 
never  try  to  practise  his  art  according  to  rule. 
That  is  folly.  For,  as  I  say,  there  are  no 
rules,  but  only  laws  of  art.  And  these  laws 
are  elemental,  psychic,  and  govern  the  artist 
himself.  He  is  swayed  by  them,  and  it  is 
his  business  to  be  sensitive  to  them  and 
obey  them.  Whether  he  chooses  to  study 
them,  and  try  to  comprehend  them  or  not, 
is  a  different  matter.  He  may  be  a  scien- 
tist as  well  as  an  artist;  but  in  order  to  be 
the  one  he  does  not  have  to  be  the  other. 
The  form  of  poetry,  then,  is  a  phenome- 
non determined  by  the  laws  of  nature,  and 

255 


as  such  we  may  very  well  consider  it  a  per- 
manency. I  do  not  mean  that  the  forms  of 
poetry  are  unchanging.  They  are  not.  Just 
because  they  are  living,  they  will  vary  con- 
stantly. We  shall  never  be  able  to  predict 
the  new  forms  poetry  may  take,  nor  should 
we  attempt  to  impose  conventional  limits  on 
versification.  Every  new  poet  will  find  his 
own  new  forms,  but  form  of  some  sort, 
rhythm  of  some  sort,  he  will  have.  He  can 
no  more  escape  those  conditions  than  spirit 
can  escape  the  influence  of  all  the  natural 
forces  when  it  enters  the  house  of  clay. 
^  The  subjects  of  poetry,  too,  are  perma- 
nent as  well  as  its  form.  The  things  which 
poetry  deals  with  are  the  perennial  hopes 
and  fears  of  the  human  heart,  the  phenomena 
of  the  inner  life.  From  these  poetry  has 
made,  and  will  always  make,  the  religions 
of  the  world.  Nor  does  it  disregard  the 
facts  of  science.  All  science  and  all  philoso- 
phy come  within  the  scope  of  poetry.  It  is 
the  function  of  poetry  to  assimilate  the  new 

256 


knowledge  and  make  use  of  the  discoveries 
of  science.  It  cannot  do  this  immediately, 
however;  it  has  to  wait  until  these  new 
facts  become  familiar  to  men's  minds,  before 
it  can  treat  of  them  in  its  own  heightened 
and  impassioned  way.  For  this  reason  we 
often  hear  it  said  that  science  and  poetry, 
or  science  and  religion,  are  opposed  to  each 
other.  But  that  is  absurd.  The  soul  cannot 
but  love  what  the  mind  sees  to  be  true.  And 
when  that  truth  is  expressed  in  terms  of 
beauty,  our  senses  must  be  delighted  as  our 
hearts  are  encouraged  and  inspired. 

If  all  this  be  so,  it  does  not  very  well 
appear  how  we  can  ever  outgrow  the  need 
of  poetry.  It  would  rather  seem  that  we 
shall  need  it  more  and  more,  under  the  in- 
creasing distractions  and  complexities  of  life. 
The  more  truth  we  know,  the  more  we  shall 
need  some  means  to  assimilate  it  and  make  it 
effective  for  our  happiness.  The  more 
wealth  we  acquire,  the  more  we  shall  need 
some  wise  guide  to  its  proper  use.     An  ex- 

257 


^fft  ^ottvs  of  2Lfte 

pansion  of  power,  without  an  accompanying 
increase  of  wisdom,  is  a  mere  embarrassment, 
and  only  makes  life  more  difficult.  Poetry  in 
its  largest  sense  helps  us  to  make  use  of  our 
knowledge  and  power  in  ways  that  tend 
toward  a  happier  existence,  and  there  can 
hardly  be  anything  more  important  than 
that,  or  of  more  lasting  interest  to  men. 


THE  END. 


258 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

RENEWALS  ONLY-— TEL.  NO.  642-^05 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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XOAN 


SEP  28  1970 


-LZ' 


^^'i 


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LD2]A-60w-3,'70 
(N5382sl0)476-A-32 


General  Library 

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Berkeley 


I. 

//■ 


YB  31-308 


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>f.i'  -■ 


